


Drabbles and Shorts and Unfinished WIPs

by ladyflowdi



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Merlin (TV), NCIS, Sherlock (TV), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Stargate Atlantis, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Child Abuse, F/M, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, Genderswap, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Meet-Cute, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-15 15:54:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 41,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyflowdi/pseuds/ladyflowdi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short pieces I've written across fandom, and which have been languishing on my hard drive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Merlin/Arthur - Short fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin vanished into thin air on Tuesday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This piece I wrote in late 2009, as part of a prompt request from the beautiful and lovely lizardspots. I always intended to write more, but never did. 
> 
> There are no words to describe the adorableness of the drawing lizardspots drew for this fic. [Go forth, and squee.](http://lizardspots.livejournal.com/286117.html)

Merlin vanished into thin air on Tuesday. 

Or rather, Arthur realized Merlin has vanished on Tuesday, because Tuesdays were when Merlin scrubbed out the wardrobe bottom where Arthur’s boots always left an awful mess. The mess was still there on Tuesday morning, dry and stuck and stinking in a truly offensive way.

On second thought, Merlin disappearing on Tuesday might have been a bit of a misconception, considering that Merlin was a _crap_ manservant and had never quite grasped the concept of chores done on routine. Some days he was there with bells on, ready to help Arthur bathe and dress and all the rest, and other days he stumbled in just as Arthur was wondering if he was going to have to actually go down to the kitchens and ask for breakfast _himself._

Very possibly, Merlin had been missing since before Tuesday.

Still, it was Tuesday when, after asking around, and then sending servants looking for the idiot only to have them come back empty handed, that Arthur rose up a search consisting of himself and himself, if only to save himself the embarrassment when he found Merlin drunk in some back alley (though admittedly, Merlin wasn’t much of a drinker), or drowned in the moat (despite his being a fine swimmer), or locked in the closet of a jilted lover (which he couldn’t even _think_ with a straight face). Still, Arthur was certain that he’d find his manservant in some truly horrifying (and hilarious) position, have a great laugh, and then send Merlin to the stocks for putting him through what he’d never call worry to Merlin’s face.

He searched everywhere, as covertly as possible. He checked the back alleys and bi-ways of the lower town, the dregs of the moat (just in case), the houses of Merlin’s two sole conquests – a mousy girl named Ellesidra who burst into tears at the sight of him, and the Lady Marissa who Arthur could clearly tell resisted the urge to punch him in the nose because of his title and title alone. He checked the castle, the corners and crannies Merlin liked to skulk in, the servant’s quarters, the kitchens. 

“He likes to pick apples in the outer orchard in the summer,” the elderly cook told him, glowering over the delicious simmering smells coming from his pots. “Now respectfully your highness, get out.”

“But—”

“Out!” 

The air was thick with the sweet scent of vegetation and flowers, tart with apples ripening in the morning sun, with the damp hint of dew, when he rode out to the skirts of Camelot’s immediate hold, to the orchard. The newer trees, planted closest to the castle, were smaller, less thick in bough and canopy. _These_ trees, on the outermost edges of the castle proper and nearest to the river that fed Camelot, had been planted the first year of his uncle’s reign and were almost thirty feet tall. The apples that they grew were the biggest, juiciest fruits in all of Camelot, dark dusky red and bright sunshine green, sweet and crispy and pulpy and filling. 

Knowing that taking Brenny, his much-loved palfrey, into the orchard was a mistake – for all that she was a good horse, she was a very _young_ horse and apples were far too much temptation – he tied her to one of the trees so she could eat her fill and set out across the orchard on foot. “Merlin,” he yelled, his voice muffled by the trees. “Merlin, you idiot!”

There wasn’t an answer as there hadn’t been for hours now, and the heavy truth he'd been trying to deny crept steadily into his thoughts. He’d kept his search local to Camelot’s forest and surrounding woodland if only because Merlin truly was a clumsy oaf and it was more likely than possible that he was lying in a ditch with a broken leg. Still, if by evening’s light Merlin had not been found, Arthur was going to gather his men regardless of what his father said and go out on the search for bandits, thieves who had _stolen_ his manservant for nefarious purposes, up to and including setting a trap for Arthur. If that was the case then—

He stopped. Craned his ears. And– 

There it was again, far off, a voice calling his name. Arthur unsheathed his sword and took off running through the trees, slowing only to keep himself from slipping on the apples that had fallen overripe from the boughs, and pushed through an overgrowth of vegetation into a glade he’d never seen before.

He stopped, frozen at the tremble of _something_ that washed across his skin, like the needle pricks of a limb gone to sleep. He shivered, boots to brain.

Sun light fell differently in the glade, as if it were mid-morning rather than almost dusk. Ripened apple blossoms fell like a blanket from the heavy trees, far more ancient than even the oldest oaks in Camelot. Birds chirped through the canopy and small game – hares, mice – sat among the daisies and marigolds, eating their fill or playing in the warm summer sunshine. A doe roamed along the skirt of the glade, nibbling at the trees, and her foal, eyes sleepy and liquid, lay curled beside the body of a woman.

A million scenarios ran through his head. She was sprawled on her side as if she’d collapsed, or been tossed aside, and wore nothing but a tatty blue shift. Arthur thought immediately of villains and rogues who took advantage of the weaker sex, of traveling through war-torn villages and seeing women and girls screaming, the thighs of their dresses matted to their skin with blood. 

_Maybe the girl isn’t a girl at all_ , he thought. Maybe she was a decoy – perhaps even now, groaning pain into the puddle of her dark hair, she was simply the bait to lure him to whatever doom Arthur was becoming more and more convinced had befallen his idiot of a manservant. Regardless, he was a man before he was a knight, and Arthur could no more turn away if it had been his own mother in the sweet smelling grass. 

He picked his way around the animals who didn’t seem altogether too worried about his presence, their big shining eyes beseeching him into giving up potato hare soup and brush basil stew. A devastatingly adorable baby rabbit jumped up to his boot and nuzzled it with its tiny pink nose; the sudden need to pick it up and bring it to his cheek was almost more than he could bear.

“Right then, I’ve stepped into hell,” he muttered, and resisted the urge to kick it, screaming, over the shrubbery. 

The girl groaned again. He couldn’t see her face, but the sound was obvious enough – pain. That more than anything made him set his sword aside, made him nudge the sleepy foal away and roll the girl onto her back. Instead of the blood he’d been expecting the girl, the ridiculously _beautiful_ girl, the girl with the familiar face, and familiar blue eyes, and _unbelievably_ familiar ears, croaked, “Bugger,” and vomited spectacularly all over his boots.

Arthur had a moment’s weakness. He was a man, a _prince_ often confronted with the unusual and fantastical, more so after he’d met a ridiculous, skinny little idiot with too many elbows and a penchant for lazing about, but sometimes there were things even he could not wrap his mind around. His brain did its best to fizzle out of his ears, his eyeballs nearly pulled up stakes and marched off into the forest to die in peace, and still the girl sat before him, wearing nothing but an ill-fitting tunic that did nothing to hide that she was _naked_ underneath it, all girl-bits and softness, with the remains of her lunch on the ground between them.

“Stop laughing,” the girl whined.

“No, seriously. _Stop laughing_ ,” the girl said.

“I hate you so much,” the girl announced, when Arthur collapsed backwards.

The girl, because Arthur refused to even _think_ of this girl as anything other than a girl, or that she had a _name_ , or that she wasn’t even a _girl_ , gave him a look so purely female that Arthur lost what little control he’d gained over himself. “I can’t believe I’m tasked with keeping you alive, you chamber pot of a human being,” the girl snapped, eyes narrowing with unbelievably attractive loathing, and shoved her hair out of her eyes.

“It – I – I’m sorry, really,” Arthur said, gasping for air. “It’s just – you’re a girl.”

“What gave it away?” she demanded, yanking the tunic up higher on her shoulder and shaking the hair out of her eyes in a way Arthur had seen her – him – _her_ do a million times before. “Was it that I’m missing my penis? Oh, my penis,” she whispered, eyes suddenly huge and shining and devastated. “Where could it have gone?”

That sobered Arthur up. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose and tried very hard not to explode into fits of giggles fit for Morgana, or at the very least not run himself through with his own sword, if only because his father would be angry. “I used to be a good boy, once.”

The girl slowly stood, shaky and tall and unsteady as a colt, dark hair falling into her eyes again as she did her best to find her (horrifyingly dainty) feet. “I feel like I’m about to tip over,” she said, and wobbled alarmingly. 

“Nice to my nursemaids, kind to animals, always open and giving to those lower than me.” Arthur stood, too, offered the girl his arm to steady herself, and when she took an unsteady step and almost planted her face into the ground, swept her up into his arms. “What I could have done to deserve this, I’ll never know. Was it calling you an idiot all the time?” he asked of the (rather pretty) idiot in his arms, who shoved the hair out of her (ridiculously beautiful) wide eyes. “Though you are that.”

“Hey,” she said, and shoved at his shoulder. “Put me down.”

“No,” Arthur said, and stepped around the bunnies frolicking and the sleeping doe and were those field mice dancing? to Brenny, who had somehow untied herself, wrenched herself away from all the apples she could eat, braided a shower of blossoms through her saddle, and walked through the orchard without losing herself once. He lifted the girl, the girl he was very pointedly not ever going to call Merlin, _ever_ , onto the saddle, swung himself up behind her, and drew her close so she wouldn’t fall and crack her painfully hard head open. “You’re an idiot,” he waved a hand to encompass all forms of the girl’s pure idiocy, “when you know these sorts of things can happen. Honestly, it’s a wonder you haven’t turned yourself into a dung beetle by now.”


	2. John/Rodney: Meet Cute Beach AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if John Sheppard never joined the Atlantis expedition? What if he and Rodney met instead under totally different circumstances, in a little beach dive where the cheeseburgers are hot and the waitresses don't mind you drag in the sand?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this midway through the second season of the show, and intended it to be a long, drawn out romance, but I never finished it.

In the perfect world Rodney would be 6 feet of pure muscle, like He-Man, Ahnuld Swartzeneger, _Teal’c_. He’d have a fine sprinkling of hair over his chest and thick, wavy, Sven-like Norwegian locks. Penis like a bull. Body like a Greek god. The charm of Casanova, and a rich and varied following consisting of movie stars, the finest composers in history, and Albert Einstein. He’d have a multibillion dollar contract from the government (didn’t matter which one, he was an open-opportunity genius), a state-of-the-art lab, and the very laws of physics tamed and at his disposal for whatever struck his fancy. He’d have a leggy blond on each arm, a Nobel prize mounted on a chain around his neck, and... no, forget the leggy blonds, he’d have a gaggle of them as research assistants, who wore nothing but Victoria’s Secret lingerie under their lab coats. And heels, which were normally completely impractical in a lab setting, but he’d bend the rules for blond, Victoria’s Secret wearing research assistants.

In the perfect world Rodney would not, in fact, be a balding, overweight astrophysicist with a temper like fire and a mouth so slick it could peel the hide from unsuspecting persons before they even knew they were being flayed alive. 

_Goosebumps prickled her skin. Her breasts heaved in her corset. Her eyes were of a brilliant luminescent sapphire blue. Rain fell down her lips and dribbled down her throat._

_Murdock could also see her breasts heaving. He was observant of how excited she was. Valerie’s nipples poked hard through the cotton of her dress. He was enticed!_

_“Murdock!” she exclaimed huskily. Her rich shiny white blond locks blew in the wind. “I’m so sorry for everything I’ve said. I looked on your alien heritage with disdain when all I should have felt was wonder.”_

_Murdock turned away a near impossible feat when all that beauty was all but laid bare for him to possess/ “You forsook me Valerie. How can I forgive such callous disregard?”_

_She burst into tears. She flung herself into his bulging arms/ “How will you ever forgive me?!”_

Rodney stopped, bit the inside of his cheek. Murdock wouldn’t be the type to take rampant advantage of a beautiful woman like Valerie, would he? 

“How often, generally speaking, do women throw their maidenly virtues to the wind?”

Across the table, Radek exhaled a gusty sigh and propped his chin in his hand. The white light from his laptop made the tan he’d gotten look almost blue. “She is a fictional character, Rodney.”

“A _believable_ fictional character. With depth,” Rodney added, when Radek arched a brow. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

Radek pulled Rodney’s laptop around, read it, and manfully suppressed whatever it was that made his whole face twitch. “She is indeed a believable fictional character with depth. However, there is the matter of her heaving bosom.”

Rodney yanked the computer back. “I hate you,” he said, though that seemed only to fuel Radek’s smirk.

As far as detox facilities went, five star accommodations in the most expensive hotel in Hawaii weren’t bad. The scenery was pretty nice, and though Rodney had never been the kind to really pay attention to these kinds of things, he had to admit that the lush volcanic mountains and the clear blue water were inviting. It did not remind him of M10-552 whatsoever, and he did _not_ look over his shoulder for scantily clad natives with spears every five minutes. The scantily clad natives here were of a distinctly different variety.

It was funny, but the Milky Way worked the same way Pegasus did -- things happened when you least expected them to. It tended to work out horribly for Rodney most days in the barely-escaping-death way, but he figured somehow, somewhere, someone was counting these things up and giving him a freebie for X amount of times he was nearly decapitated and not only didn’t get the girl, but didn’t get the ZPM she had clutched to her Pam-Andersonesk bosom.

It wasn’t that Rodney was bitter, or anything. Sure, he’d been dumped here like so much garbage, expressly ordered to detox and desist by Sumner and Elizabeth. It wasn’t like they’d just been scrambling for their _lives_ or anything, wasn’t like the _Wraith had just tried to blow them up_ or anything, wasn’t like Rodney now saw what Elizabeth did with her _brilliant scientists who had just saved their collective asses_ or anything. 

Still, he couldn’t blame Elizabeth, or even Sumner, too much. Once a (brilliant and handsome) man decided, on his hundredth cup of coffee in fourteen sleepless days, to write a romance novel about hot alien love, he’d be a little worried too. At least Rodney had lost his mind normally -- across the table, Radek played with one of the dreadlocks Ronon had helpfully twisted and waxed for him.

_She was ripe with genius, for being a blond. She was the only woman Murdock had ever connected with. She met his intellect idea for idea. He found her truly fascinating. She was the only woman who had ever remained unattainable despite everything Murdock did._

It seemed, however, that despite all the forced rest and relaxation, the sex scene in the novel Rodney had hoped to have finished was going nowhere. It wasn’t because he was an astrophysicist with little natural talent when it came to creating vibrant literary works of art, either; Rodney had more talent in his pinky toe than most people had in their entire bodies. He was not lacking for genius; he was just having a little bit of a hard time.

Rodney morosely stirred his coffee and looked out at the scenery. On the beach, a guy who had to be Rodney’s age was charming three nubile American girls in bikini’s made out of string and eye patches, with his surfboard and a smile. 

_He had a special smile for her. Her stomach quivered. It seared through her and her most private areas grew damp. He fondled her breasts._

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Rodney said, grinning and rubbing his hands.

He poised his fingers back over his keyboard and paused. Okay, so Murdock had his hands on her breasts, great! Good, wonderful! even. Rodney hadn’t had sex in longer than he could remember but still, this was good. Just like riding a bicycle. An admittedly imaginary bicycle, but still. Breasts were breasts, and one never forgot the feel of them, tight nipples, soft gasps and all.

_he never looked away even when his hands traced her breasts._

Rodney stared at the blinking line in the text document. Right! Breasts. ….breasts. Big, round, full breasts. _Breasts._

_her ample breasts._

No, no, no. 

_her heaving bosom._

Dammit, Radek was going to pay.

_her ample breasts. He traced her large brown nipples. She quivered against him like a_

Like a what? 

“What quivers?”

Radek looked up from his own computer screen, eyebrow arched. “You know, Rodney, I thought we had already gotten past this latent attraction between us.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “What quivers?”

“My manly bosoms.”

“I _hate you_.”

“Jello?”

Rodney rolled his eyes so hard he felt it in the back of his throat. “Somehow, I don’t think jello is something a woman wants to be compared to.” Especially if it wasn’t blue. 

On the beach, the guy made the three girls erupt into giggles. 

Rodney glared out the window at him. He wasn’t even that good-looking; he was kind of skinny and hairy, like he’d never quite grown into his limbs. He made up for it by being tall and muscular, especially in the chest and shoulders, but he ruined the effect by wearing a ridiculous pair of aviator sunglasses Tom Cruise would have been proud of. 

He was striking in a far-off kind of way, but not enough to attract three beautiful young women, surfboard or no surfboard. 

The girls tossed their hair, thrust their tiny, perky chests out, and canted their hips invitingly. All Aviator Guy did was bend down for his board. 

Oh!

_her ample breasts. He traced her large brown nipples. He watched her face get red._

_The Guide to Writing Romance_ at his elbow told him that women sometimes blushed like that all over when they were aroused. Not that Rodney had ever seen a blush “rise up” anyone’s throat -- Elizabeth’s blush always warmed her ears, Teyla’s pinked her cheeks, but Rodney had never actually seen a full-body flush. He was reasonably sure he’d never seen any of the women he’d been with flush like that. Rodney was a handsome man; bad with women (who were difficult to figure out, even for someone of his caliber of genius), but still a handsome man. He had something women tended to like, and he’d had no shortage of companionship throughout his life. Women seemed to always leave him with this small, sad, knowing smile, though. He didn’t know what that was about. He’d long ago chalked it up to women forever eluding reason.

If anyone had ever seen a full body female flush it was Aviator Guy. Nubile young flesh probably lined up around the block when he whipped out that surfboard. Hell, he probably had the flushes chronicled by color and intensity. 

The guy walked over to his surfboard, passing his fingers through his hair just, Rodney was certain, to make the girls staring after him swoon prettily. Rodney ignored Radek entirely, who was watching him with a knowing smirk.

He watched Aviator paddle out until he was almost a speck on the horizon, watched as he finally caught a wave, or whatever the appropriate surfer lingo was, and did some fancy move that proved to Rodney that the man, other than being damn pretty, also seemed to have a _death wish_. Rather than wiping out, as Rodney had seen surfers do countless times since he’d been abandoned in this hellhole, Aviator did a few more moves and surfed his way right into shore.

He strode out of the shallows, shaking his hair out. Water fell off of him in rainbow waves, his longish hair stuck to his neck and cheek. He had a big, brilliant smile on his face as he pushed his feet into flip-flops, gathered his towel, and started up the sand. Water sheeted down hard abs, over biceps and hairy arms. It glistened in his chest hair, down his belly to the ridiculously low slung board shorts that stuck wet to his body and--

Radek leaned over and tapped his chin up. “Would you like a napkin? You’ve left a puddle.”

Going. To. Pay. “I did mention I hate you, right?

“And I would believe you, if I did not already know you cannot resist my quivering manly bosoms,” Radek said, smirking. “Or are those Casanova’s that you cannot resist? I am only a modest scientist, Rodney.”

“I swear to God, I’m dumping you in the nearest volcano,” Rodney snapped.

“Large, phallic, spews molten liquid… yes, this seems erect -- correct!” Radek said, and ducked before Rodney could send his fork twanging at his eyeball. “I think,” he said cheerfully, snapping his laptop closed, “I will go for a swim.”

Which of course had nothing to do with the three lonely girls leaping about on the sand, their assets a’jiggle for all and sundry to see. “Uh huh.”

“A swim,” Radek repeated. “And if I find something else to entertain myself with, than it is for the best, hmm?” 

“You do realize you could be their father.”

Radek’s eyes widened innocently. “Sea shell gathering, Rodney! Though you are writing ridiculous romance novel, of course your mind would be in the gutter.”

“Sea shell gathering.”

“A lost art,” Radek said, beaming. He slurped down the rest of his coffee, put on a sexy look Rodney thought made him look constipated, but Aviator walked in at that moment and Rodney didn’t hear a word, and didn’t hear him leave.

It was like the sun rose when Aviator walked into Norma’s, damp and dripping, squelching flip flops and all. He smelled like salt and sunscreen, like sunshine and sweat and exertion. He looked completely _wrong_ against the backdrop of peach paisley wallpaper. His eyes were the most shocking shade of green Rodney had ever seen.

Aviator slipped into the booth one over from Rodney’s, tucking his shades into wild, wet hair, his sleeveless blue shirt damp in places and sticking to his skin. Within moments Norma herself burst out of the kitchen, holding a coffee pot and a menu, an adoring smile on her round, browned face. “Hey, good lookin’,” she said, canting one generous hip and pulling out her pad and pencil. “How are you this fine day?” 

“Pretty great. Waves are hitting fifteen feet in some places.”

“Think you might place this year?”

“I’m sure as hell going to try. How are you?”

“Can’t complain.”

“Good to hear,” Aviator said, smiling like it would melt butter. His eyes were bright in the dark tan of his face, creased and smug. 

_Murdock smiled. His teeth gleamed smirkily. His hair flopped attractively. The sun caught the brown in it. It too, gleamed handsomely. “I think you’re incredibly attractive, Valerie.”_

_He watched her bosom heave. “Murdock, you mustn’t--”_

_“Say the truth?”_

_“Be so forward!”_

“Can I get a burger? I know it’s kind of early for lunch…”

“‘Course sweetheart, anything you want,” Norma said, as if she hadn’t nearly skinned Rodney alive with her tiny rodent eyes when he’d asked for the very same thing not an hour ago.

Aviator turned on the charm, almost like he’d thrown a switch on somewhere. His entire face softened with mischief, and he propped his chin on his hand, gazing at Norma as if she were the only woman in existence. “And maybe… if it isn’t too much trouble…”

“Yes?”

“Some… some of your famous freshly squeezed orange juice? And a papaya?” 

It was the most appalling thing Rodney had ever seen, and not only because the idea of anyone willingly drinking liquid death made his bowels turn to water. Aviator went from being forty to four so fast Rodney almost got whiplash, all big green eyes and innocent hope, while his lips curved in the kind of smile that made people want to simultaneously give the man a hug and fuck him stupid. 

It was _gold._

Bringing as little attention to himself as possible, Rodney turned his laptop just enough so that he could look both at it and at Aviator at the same time.

_“Forward?” His chest bulged impressively when he stood back up. He was large and impressive. He smelled like man. “Forward would be demanding you remove your clothes Valerie.”_

_Her chest heaved once more. Her eyes swam. Her nipples poked through her bodice. “Impertinent!” she screamed!_

Norma arrived with Aviator’s coffee and orange juice, her massive bosom pressing against his shoulder as she set them down. Aviator never missed a step, smiling that private, charming smile of his, and brought one foot over his knee. Sand fell off his flip flop. “Thanks, Norma.”

Norma simpered. “Anything for my sweet boy.”

_He seized her by her tiny waist. Her long blond locks blew in the wind. She smelled so good. He felt his maleness grow firm between his legs. “You like it when I‘m impertinent.”_

Aviator pulled a sugar packet out of the small tray at the end of the table. He flapped it back and forth, tore the top, and tipped the entire thing into his mouth. He got the sugar everywhere, down his damp shirt, on the table. He licked his whiskered lips, and tore open another sugar packet.

_“Murdock!” Valerie squealed but even a woman with her pedigree could not hide her lust. She quivered against him. She grew damp between her thighs. She was hot and pressed herself against him. He felt her hot and ready through their dress._

The second packet went in his mouth too, a little less messily than the first. His face twisted, and Rodney’s teeth ached in sympathy. He licked and sucked at the sugar in his mouth for another few seconds, washed it down with a sip of coffee, and then opened one of the small creamers from the tray. 

Rodney wasn’t entirely surprised when he tipped the whole thing in his mouth, foregoing the coffee completely.

Elvis came on the radio. Aviator’s foot began to pop where it sat on his knee. He opened another sugar packet, but instead of dumping it in his mouth as Rodney had half expected, he poured it into his coffee. He looked around for a spoon, and not finding one, stirred it with one long finger still peppered with sea salt, sun block and sand, eyes shifting around guiltily.

Then he stuck it in his mouth down to the second knuckle before carefully sipping his hot coffee.

Fire exploded low in Rodney’s belly.

Murdock was too hot to enjoy her frilly undergarments for more than a second. He ripped them off of her. They tore loudly and she screamed. “Yes oh Murdock yes please!”

He would give her what she wanted! He unbuckled his pants and pulled his manly length free. It throbbed and jerked in his hands! He ached for Valerie. She heaved against him. She was flushed.

Murdock ripped her bodice as well and bared her breasts. They were large and robust. He attached his mouth to her large brown nipple. He plunged into her. Valerie screamed in ecstasy. She threw her head back. 

“Need anything?”

Rodney jerked so hard the table thumped, all the glassware shook, and the napkin dispenser fell over. “No! I’m busy, go away.”

She rolled her eyes at him so hard he was sure they’d have gotten stuck that way if she hadn’t had such tiny, beady eyes to begin with, and stomped off. Rodney wondered idly if his heart normally beat this hard, or if he was going to have a coronary, when -- “So you’re the guy everyone’s talking about.”

_Shit_. Rodney turned back around and looked at Aviator, who sat watching him curiously. Rodney was positive he was doing a fine imitation of a deer-in-headlights. “Excuse me?”

“The guy with the citrus and the bad attitude.”

“Oh, yes, how wonderful, I’ve become the topic of gossip the land over.”

“Nah. We don’t get many folks out this far out on the island, so only gossip Kāneʻohe over,” Aviator said, and smiled. He had white teeth. Very even, very white, very _nice_ teeth. “Want to join me for, uh,” he peered down at his burger, then at the clock, and smirked, “quasi breakfast?”

Rodney’s heart jack-tripped. “You don’t even know me.”

“And I will continue to not know you if you don’t have kinda-lunch with me,” Aviator said. He tipped his head, and his hair fell rakishly over his forehead. 

Food would go a long way to soothing his wounded dignity. Rodney’s cheeks went warm, and something tickled strangely in his throat. It felt a whole lot like embarrassed anticipation. “Well, then I suppose I can’t refuse.”

He stood and stuffed his laptop in his bag before slipping into the booth with Aviator. Rodney had thought the guy was only average looking when he’d been out on the beach impressing coeds, and now was nearly blinded by the pretty at such close proximity. The man had the slightest hint of crow’s feet around his eyes and pouty lips last seen on the WB. It was disgusting just how attractive he was, hair or not. 

“What do you feel like?” Aviator said, and waved Norma over. “My treat.”

“Oh, I couldn’t--”

“No, seriously. It’s an excuse to get to know you better, and I figure I might as well ply you with Norma’s cooking if the rumors of your temper are to be believed.”

Charming _and_ hot. It was completely unfair. 

Norma walked back over, and Rodney could read the shock all over her face at seeing Rodney sitting there with Aviator. “Norma, would you mind cooking up another burger for my friend, here?” Aviator asked, all but batting his eyelashes. “Fries on the side?” 

“No citrus!”

Norma glared hot pointy death at Rodney. “That it?”

“Yep. Thanks, Norma.”

She gave Aviator a long-suffering look that read ‘only for you’, and moseyed on her way. 

Nervousness tickled his throat, but hey, if he could face scary space vampires with nothing but a stupid half-made Genii nuke and a pair of balls, he could face a handsome stranger in a diner. “Doctor Rodney McKay.”

“Mister John Sheppard. You can call me John,” Aviator said, eyes creased with amusement. 

“I was watching you.”

Something went slow and easy in his expression. “Everyone does.” 

“Cocky too, huh.”

“Don’t forget good-looking,” John added, but there was that grin again, a semi-permanent fixture on his face. 

“I was watching you on the beach. With the surfing.”

John waved a hand modestly. His fast-drying hair lay long on his cheek, down his neck, curling just a hint at the bottom. “Just a hobby. Been doing it since I was six, but I stopped for a while. I’ve been getting back into it this last year.” John stared at him with something unusual in his eyes, the kind of look most men got before they smiled or punched him in the face. “You weren’t just watching me surf, though.” He nudged a chin out at Rodney’s closed laptop. 

Right. Flaming cheeks -- check. “That’s just--” Rodney shifted uncomfortably. 

“I was interested. It’s not every day someone stares at me like that.” When Rodney made a face, John added, “Seriously.” He tipped his head. “What’s with the laptop?”

“I’m writing a novel. I don’t know if you know this or not, but you’re romance-character material.”

John laughed, dear _God_ the stupidest laugh in all the history of mankind, a donkey bray of a guffaw last heard in a barn. At least there was one thing that wasn’t perfect about this guy. It made him seem more real, like he wasn’t a figment of Rodney’s diseased, romance-addled brain. “Hey.”

Up went the chin. “Do you deny it?”

John thought for a moment, chewing on his French fries. “I guess not,” he said at last, grinning around his mouthful. 

Right. Rodney could do this. “I can only assume you aren’t really a romance character.”

“Not last time I looked.”

Norma arrived in that moment with his food and a carafe of coffee that made Rodney hate her a little bit less. Nothing looked spit on or disgusting, either. They shared a mutual glare before she went on her way, and Rodney dug in. “What do you do?”

John waved a French fry around. “My family owns this place.”

Rodney arched a brow. “Norma’s Hut?”

“This stretch of land.” 

“Really?”

“Mariner’s Hotel, about forty five feet into the water, and part of the volcano. My pop’s got a mining operation on the south side, and we run a little tourist shop by the cliffs.”

“Huh. So you’re, what, rich?”

“Yep.” 

Well. Rodney sat back in his seat. “I’ll bet you tell all the girls that.”

“People tend to be different when they find out you’ve got money.” He motioned out the window with the same French fry. “Take your friend.”

Rodney wished he hadn’t. Radek, in all his hairy Czech glory, had stripped down to his swim trunks and was… was _frolicking_ with those nearly nude co-eds. They were giggling, tackling him like the biggest, kinkiest puppy pile. 

“Sea shells my _ass_.” Rodney closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. It took him ten seconds to box the trauma and put it away for later horror, and another five to fend off the headache he could feel just waiting to strike. When he looked at John again those expressive eyes of his were laughing. 

John leaned forward, like he was about to impart a big secret. Rodney helplessly leaned forward with him. “Here’s the thing. All he had to do was say he had money, which I’m assuming he does, if he’s hanging out with you, _Doctor_ McKay. Those girls will never look at me again. I’m grateful, actually.”

“Yes, because having three nude, barely dressed women oiling you down like an Adonis is horrible.”

“Does hell for the pores,” John said, smirking. “How about you?”

“I don’t get oiled down, thank you.”

He laughed again and Rodney was reminded of his summer at his Granddad’s farm in Ottawa. “What do you do, aside from being a romance novelist-cum-doctor?”

“And brilliant?” 

“And brilliant.” 

“That’s classified.”

John studied him for a second. “That’s pretty much a patented way to make me curious.”

“Some secrets can’t be shared. That’s what makes them secret.”

“True enough.” He leaned back with his cup of coffee, looking at Rodney thoughtfully. “I’ve got to be at my shop in ten minutes. Want to have dinner with me?”  
It came to Rodney, _wham_ , a golf-ball sized piece of ohmyfuckinggod -- this guy was flirting with him. And asking him out. To dinner. Except, when men asked other men out, it wasn’t just food and conversation -- it was sex. _Sex_. Rodney was going to get _laid_. This guy wanted in Rodney’s pants. Or maybe he just wanted dinner. It had been so long since Rodney had gone on a date that he wasn’t entirely sure.

“Sure,” he said, trying to be as cool and failing miserably. “I’d like that.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Shraders.”

“Swanky.” John pursed his lips. “How about you meet me in the lobby at seven or so?”

Yes, yes, Y. E. S. “Okay.”

“Right.” John smiled, all casual. “See you then.” 

He put his shades back on his nose, gave Rodney a grin, and after stopping to pass Norma some very wet money he pulled out of the pocket of his shorts, he flip-flopped out of the diner. Rodney waited until John had thrown his board into the back of a bright yellow truck and had driven off before smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. Honestly. A summer time fling was exactly what the doctor ordered. Only not actually -- Carson was too Scottish to recommend getting laid as a way of lowering his blood pressure, but Rodney thought he’d be pleased with the results nonetheless. 

The truth of it was, Rodney had gone a little insane those last few weeks in Atlantis. It had nothing to do with the methamphetamines Carson had supplied with better regularity than a South American drug dealer, or the Wraith siege that had seemed to sneak up on them despite the fact that Rodney and Radek hadn’t slept for nine days. Okay, maybe that was a lie, maybe it had a little bit to do with both those things, because even now, three weeks later, Rodney still woke up in the middle of the night with his guts in a twist, shaking so hard his teeth chattered. 

So yes, maybe the drugs and the week and a half of no sleep had contributed, but if he was honest with himself he had to admit that maybe he’d snapped like a brittle leaf in October, just cracked right down the middle. And no wonder, anyway; he’d kept Atlantis running with spit and duct tape for months, had stretched his mind to the limit and back all with fucking _Carson_ , who was oil to Atlantis’ water despite being a natural gene carrier.

Tonight, for the first time since the Marines had tenderly dragged both himself and Radek onto the _Daedalus_ kicking and screaming, he didn’t resent Elizabeth for ordering a month of mandatory vacation.

Shraders really was exquisite. Rodney had never been a man much enamored with hotels, having lived in them for most of his adult life, but even he had to admit that the style and money that had gone into the hotel was well placed. It wasn’t the typical tourists-and-kids place, squawking babies and slapping flip-flops and old ladies walking around with towels around their waists. The hotel was first class, and Rodney appreciated that even despite the filthy, disgusting things he’d said, Elizabeth had still demanded the best for both himself and Radek.

It didn’t hurt that he was about to go on his first date since 1999, either.

After an inordinately long time figuring out which one of the two dress shirts he’d brought he was going to wear, Rodney went down to the lobby five minutes to seven. It was quiet, expected for a hotel this nice in the off season. Still, Rodney thought that even had the room been full of people he’d have still been drawn to John like a moth to a flame. 

“Hey, Doc,” John said, and smiled, blinding white teeth and golden skin, and his own hands, shoved into the pockets of his tan shorts. He stood off to the side, by the doors of the restaurant. His long hair fell around the collar of his white shirt with too few buttons done up, and he was wearing _sandals_ and Rodney had never seen anything or anyone look so damn good, so perfect and effortless. There was a luminous quality to his face, to his eyes that made Rodney’s palms sweaty and his heart skip a little in his chest. He hadn’t felt like this since he was a kid, since before he got recruited for the military and all that had been in his future were research grants and fantasies of pretty people strewn about his lab with pouty lips and come-hither eyelashes. It had felt innocent then and it felt innocent now, in a way potential sex with a man had never been for Rodney. He was used to the grunting and manly snarling and the fuck of hips and a handy wall.

This felt good, like something that wasn’t cheap. Hell, Sheppard was buying him dinner. It was downright romantic.

“You dead set about staying here in the hotel?” John asked, a pink tinge to his cheeks. Rodney thought maybe he’d stared too long.

“Uh,” he said intelligently.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’,” John said, and chuckled. He sounded like a dirty old lady. It wasn’t at all attractive, and yet. “I had an idea, if you’re feeling adventurous.”

“Depends,” Rodney said, trying for cool even as his ears burned. “So long as it doesn’t put me in mortal jeopardy and it’s citrus free, I’m game.”

“No jeopardy and no citrus, promise,” he said, smiling, and nodded his head to the door. 

The air was welcomingly cool after the heat of the day, which the hotel clerk had assured him was typical late April weather in /HAWAII. Before long the beach would be filled with coeds by the hundred, families and flip flops and those grannies with towels around their waists, but for now, for a few more weeks, it belonged to the locals. No one, _no_ one, could deny that John was a local. He looked at ease here, his sandals loud on the marble steps leading down from the hotel to the parking lot, and beyond, the beach. The sun was going down and the colors, red, pink, orange and purple, splashed across John’s skin like a painting.

John stopped at the valet booth and passed the kid standing there his charming clump of keys before turning to attention back on Rodney. “How’re you liking the island so far?”

“Better since this morning.”

John grinned, a flash of white, and a breeze pulled at the curls at his collar. “Oh yeah?” he asked, tilting his head.

“Surprised?” 

“Not really.” He slouched a shoulder comfortably against one of the marble columns holding the massive awning up, and his mouth curled with mischief. “Want to play a game?”

They were _flirting_. Rodney had never flirted in his entire _life_ and yet here he was, standing on the most beautiful island of Hawaii, watching the sun slip slowly down over the horizon to paint the water every color of the rainbow, _flirting_. It was easy, ridiculously easy like it had never been before. This felt different, and it ached deep in Rodney’s belly, thrilling and terrifying. A long, slow seduction. He wanted it. God, yes, he wanted it. 

“Depends,” Rodney said again, a prickle of excitement and nerves tickling the nape of his neck. “What’s in it for me?” 

“Ah, but that’s the beauty of it. You get to know me better, I get to know _you_ better, and we begin what I hope is going to be a great evening,” John said, and tipped his head. “So. Game?”

Rodney watched the wind pick his hair up again, curling around his neck. “I am.”

“Okay, then, Doctor Rodney McKay. What’s your favorite color?”

“Color?” Rodney snorted. “Seriously?”

“Sure,” John said, and stuck his hands in his pockets. “You can tell a lot about a person from their favorite color.”

“Like what?”

“Hey, don’t make me go into my sordid past, here,” and when Rodney just peered at him he added, “I used to date a woman who was into the tarot cards, mystical palm reading crap.”

“Oh, well in that case,” Rodney said, and rolled his eyes again, much to John’s amusement. “Red. Well, maroon really, but yes, red.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. What’s wrong with liking red?”

“Nothing,” John said, holding up a hand. “It’s just that most people pick blue, or green or something. Not like other people though, are you?”

“Of course not,” Rodney said, and sniffed. “I’m a genius.”

“A genius who picked the color I know least about,” John said, and smushed his lips together in what Rodney assumed John thought was a thoughtful expression. “Let’s see… red, red, the color of blood. Also delicious wine. And also roses. Though you don’t seem a roses kind of guy, so probably more the wine. Uh… hold on, I got this, let me see if I remember… had something to do with life lines and picking the Queen of hearts, I’m sure…”

“Funny,” Rodney said, and surprised himself by realizing it was. He peered into the parking lot a moment and added, “Ah, here comes your extended cab monstrosity of a penis metaphor.”

“That’s Deuce,” John said proudly, taking the keys from the trembling kid who’d driven it -- for this Rodney felt the kid deserved a medal -- and opened the side door. The door did not appreciate this, seeing as it squealed and wailed, and Rodney’s eyes clenched despite himself. “And for your information, she’s my brother’s, but he’s letting me borrow it for a while. She’s a good girl, takes me everywhere and never gives me any trouble. Ain’t that right, baby?” he cooed, petting the passenger side mirror lovingly.

“Finally, something painfully unattractive about you,” Rodney said, but John just grinned, so he had no choice but to climb in. 

It smelled like fish and ocean and oil, and something else underneath it all, like work and John and the sun. It was a good thing the truck didn’t have windows anymore, Rodney thought, as John climbed in. “My turn,” he said happily, yanking his seat belt on. When Rodney peered at him he said, “Oh yeah,” and leaned over, grabbed a bungee cord that had been welded into the side of the truck, and yanked it around Rodney’s middle. “Sorry, don’t have a seat belt for that side, _long_ story,” John said, cranking the truck into gear.

“I thought you said no death would be involved tonight!”

“She doesn’t go over forty, don’t worry,” John said, and when Rodney didn’t look at all convinced, added, “We’re just heading over to my side of the island.”

“My brain is insured for several million dollars. If I die the government will come after you. It’ll all be very _X-Files_.”

“I won’t kill you, McKay, scout’s honor,” John said, laughter in his voice. “You’re weird, you know that?”

Rodney looked down his nose at John, which was pretty funny considering he was tied into this man’s death trap with a _bungee cord_. John seemed to think so too, because he hummed with amusement and said, “Any hobbies?”

“I don’t have any.”

“Wait, seriously?” John frowned. “You don’t golf? Collect stamps?”

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. When he’d still been on Earth, before Siberia, he’d built telescopes. He’d done it since he was a kid, though as he grew older the telescopes because much more intricate and complex. When he was sixteen he’d had the single most powerful handmade telescope in North America. 

But that was before Atlantis, before he got to go through folds in space and visit all those places he’d looked at through his eyepiece. 

He’d been quiet for too long, and he startled when John said, “Hey, didn’t mean to drag up bad memories.”

“No, no,” Rodney said, leaning back into the seat tentatively. “It’s not that. My job takes up most of my time. I don’t really have a hobby.” After a second he added, “I liked astronomy as a kid.”

“Really?”

“Really.” 

“Huh,” John said, but he looked intrigued. “Ever see a UFO?”

“You could say that. Does your hair do that naturally?”

That startled a laugh out of John, even as he ran his fingers through the curls tangling in the wind. “Gotta keep it long. It hides the cowlicks.”

“You think so?”

“No,” John said, but he laughed again, different and somehow _genuine_. “Do you like pina coladas?”

“No. No getting caught in the rain, either.”

“Damn, and here I thought I was being clever.” John said, and though Rodney glanced away he could see John’s smile through the corner of his eye. “Ever been to a clambake?” 

“Clambake?” Rodney squinted at him. “As in, New England, let’s frolic on the sand and then go yachting, cheerio and good day, clambake? That isn’t some drug-addict metaphor, is it? I already did the pot thing in college, and almost ate my three hundred dollar Applied Engineering textbook when my roomie Rick Porter got lost coming back from the corner grocer.”

John grinned. “You did pot in college? You daredevil, you.”

“Believe me when I say I’ve never lived it down. I am a world-renowned astrophysicist, and every year without _fail_ one of my idiotic colleagues will ask me if I ate the binding and all. Hilarious!”

“I’m sure you make them cower under the magnificence of your insured brain.”

“I do,” Rodney said cheerfully, humming with glee. “I made Paul Goldsmith cry, once. On stage. In front of five hundred world-famous astrophysicists. It was _beautiful_.” 

John just grinned, but there was interest in his eyes, a newfound touch of _something_ that pulled deep in Rodney’s guts. “So, um. How about you?”

“I can’t say I’ve ever made Paul Goldsmith cry, but to this day I’m pretty sure my Drill Sergeant at boot camp had that coronary because of me,” John said, and it was on the tip of Rodney’s tongue to ask just when the hell John was going to mention he was _military_ when he beamed and pointed in the distance, where a souvenir shop of some kind sat right by the water. “That’s my pop’s place, there. We’ve been helping him remodel it, that’s why Dave -- that’s my brother -- and I are here.”

“Has he always had it?”

“Nah. It was my granddad’s store before he passed a while back, and my pop got it into his head that he wanted to move here and get the ole place started again last year. We’ve been trying to get it renovated ever since.” John said, refreshingly honest and pleased. “That’s for the tourists, though. I work for my pop to keep my side job going.”

“You’re a professional male stripper.”

John struck a cheesy pose. “You’ve got me all figured out.”

“Of course I do, genius here,” Rodney said, and hid his pleasure. 

“I make surf boards.”

“You _make_ them?”

“Sure do.” Off Rodney’s look, he smirked. “What, you thought ‘rich beach bum’ was my main mode of existence?”

“It had crossed my mind,” Rodney said petulantly, and John beamed.

They turned onto a dirt road. A volcanic mountain cut through the scenery to his left, the water stretched out in front, the shop nestled comfortably into a hill that overlooked the beach. It was a nice looking shop, rustic, the paint pealing from the sea air. It was filled to brimming with all the crap these places always sold to tourists -- t-shirts and sandals and knickknacks, wind chimes built out of sand dollars and little crabs with beautifully painted shells. It had a lot going for it in terms of location, right off the main tourist road, and the building itself, with its huge windows and brightly painted sea green exterior. The sign read, “The Roundhouse”, which was weird, since the building wasn’t round at all.

They rolled to a stop in front of the lit shop where customers were loitering despite the hour. There were only a few cars left, though it was testament to how busy it got in the peak hours of the year that the parking was so big. 

In the light of the sinking sun, with the dark reds and purples thrown across the sky, The Roundhouse was illuminated beautifully, as was the second shop Rodney hadn’t seen when they pulled in. It looked more clapboard and rusted metal door than shop, truth be told, with its peeling paint and scoured glass windows overlooking the water. A single light glowed within, and a sign above the door read “Shep’s Boards”. “So you carve wood all day, huh.”

“I wish,” John said. “The boards are made out of polyurethane, and sometimes out of foam layered with fiberglass and resin. The burns I’ve sustained in the name of awesome could make your hair curl.” He leaned over Rodney’s lap, fingers warm at his hip, and Rodney flushed, all over. He didn’t smell like cheap cologne or hair products, as Rodney had half expected. There was something natural about him, something clean and masculine and casually, as if he did it every day, John ran his fingers through the hair at the nape of Rodney’s neck, his thumb tenderly brushing the sensitive spot under his ear. A bloom of heat, bright and hot, melted down Rodney’s spine, and he stared at John’s face, his eyes, the swirl of gold and green a bolt of color in the setting sun’s light.

“Curl _more_ , anyway,” John said softly, and Rodney had no idea what he was saying, because his mouth was so close, and Rodney hadn’t felt a surge of excitement like this in years and years, something primal and sweet and deep in the center of himself. 

John’s hand fell away, and a splash of red rose on his cheeks, into the tips of his ears. With a flick the bungee cord came off, and he climbed out of the truck. “Dogs or cats?”

Yes, well, Rodney slammed the door shut and used that moment to breathe for a minute, to look away from the pretty, pretty blush on that angular face. “What? Uh, cats.”

“Really? Would have pegged you for a dog person.”

“Too needy. Self sufficiency trumps doggy breath any day.” Rodney said, well damn aware of his tingling skin and the way his voice was hitching. “Ketchup or mustard?”

“Mustard on hot dogs, ketchup on everything else. Chinese or tai?”

“Depends on the stray population. Favorite song?”

“Somewhere Over the Rainbow. My mom was in love with the Wizard of Oz,” John added. “Favorite movie?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Yeah, trick question,” John said with a snicker. “Better question -- gold bikini or the white floaty number?”

“Always partial to the white one. No bra.”

“A man after my own heart. Ship?”

“The _Falcon_ , of course, though the X-Wings are a close second. Quote?”

““I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” What’s better, the old trilogy or the new?”

“Like you even have to ask. I’m convinced George Lucas smoked weed while writing Revenge of the Sith.” 

“The good stuff smuggled into the country in someone’s ass.” That startled a laugh out of Rodney, because _honestly_. John just smiled, his ears going pink again. “You believe in happy endings?”

“In the movies, sure.” 

“Oh, come on, McKay. No hopeless romantic under all that stoicism? Even Han got the girl at the end.”

“Happy endings are for teenagers and people with IQ’s that don’t break the triple digits.”

They passed an older couple, walking with arms entwined. John glanced at him, hair falling over his shoulder a little, against his cheek. “You gay, Rodney?”

Rodney’s heart jump-skipped and a slow, warm coil of heat curled in his chest. “I think so, yes. Are you?”

“Sometimes,” John said just as plainly, stuffing his hands into his pockets, and looked up under his lashes. “Just looking for someone to ease the passing of time with.”

Rodney had never heard anyone put it quite that way, or that sadly. Tragic, misunderstood hunk. “You sure you aren’t a romance-novel character? ‘Cause I’ve got to tell you, you’ve got it all going for you. Not that I’ve ever read a romance novel, but I’ve heard talk.”

“You’d be surprised who else told me that today. This annoying short guy.”

“I’m sure he was the epitome of poise and masculinity,” Rodney sniffed, just to hear John laugh, deep and honking. 

A blond head popped out of an open window of the Roundhouse. “Hey butthole, pop is looking for you!”

John snickered and flashed Rodney a grin, a white streak in the dark reds and oranges of sinking sun. “I’m coming!”

“That’s what your last girlfriend told me too!” the man bellowed in returned, and slammed the window shut.

“That handsome and eloquent member of the human race is my big brother, Dave,” John said with pride, and led Rodney up the white plank boards serving as a sort of sidewalk in the sand, to salt-scored French doors propped open with enormous sea shells. 

The shop was exactly as Rodney had imagined it, the million tourist traps his stepmother, Shaureen, had insisted they visit on their yearly holidays. The Roundhouse was big, filled to bursting with every kind of souvenir and knickknack Rodney had long ago become convinced were mass produced in one of those American states in the middle. There were t-shirts in a wild assortment of colors all boasting ‘Kāneʻohe Beach” on the front, with little sand dunes and water scenes and playful animated dolphins. There were picture frames and glass bottles with tiny “help!” scrolls inside of them, and wind chimes made out of a beautiful assortment of shells Radek would have been jealous of. There were flip-flops, and stuffed animals, and even those little crabs with painted sea shells in their own crab corral. What made it a different flavor from all the other tourist shops on every beach Rodney had ever been to were the surfboards. 

Designed in every color and style imaginable, it didn’t take a genius like Rodney to see the craftsmanship and talent that had gone into creating the boards. They were nothing like the mass produced surfboards Rodney had seen in other shops in Kāneʻohe, or hell, LA for that matter. These boards were hand painted with tender love and care, bright blue and sea foam green and a red so bright it hurt to look at, painted with surfers, and sunsets, and even wild patterns with no discernible meaning other than being attractive.

“Like them?”

Rodney glanced back at John, who was bouncing on his toes. “You did these?”

“Most of them. There’s another guy out on the west side of the island who brings them in to sell, but yeah. Most are mine.” He clapped Rodney on the shoulder and ducked around a woman and her daughter cooing at the parakeet in the cage by the cashiers table. “Pop?”

“Yeah!” came a voice deep in the back of the store.

“Yeah,” John yelled back, and winked at Rodney. “Old man’s ears are going.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that,” the man at the register said. His eyes passed over Rodney curiously. He was sandy haired and square jawed, but the resemblance between the two of them was too obvious to deny. 

“He’ll have to catch me, first,” John said, smirking. “Rodney, this is David Michael, my brother. Dave, Doctor Rodney McKay. Make nice while I go find pop.”

John disappeared, leaving Rodney alone with Dave, who despite his smiling mouth had flints of ice in his eyes. “Howdy,” he said, and extended a hand. “ _Doctor_ David Michael Sheppard,” he added. “What’s your field, if I may ask?”

“Astrophysics and mechanical engineering.”

That seemed to take the wind right out of the guy’s sails, who stopped looking so smug and instead stared at him. “You’re a rocket scientist.” 

Rodney didn’t roll his eyes, but only just. “I’m a rocket scientist.”

He whistled and shook his head. “John always did like them smart.”

John reemerged and saved Rodney from trying to find a response to that. He was chatting cheerfully and hauling a bright blue cooler. At his side a man was dragging another. He resembled David, square jawed and big, thick, and the only thing he had in common with his younger son was his thatch of dark, close-cropped hair in a deep chestnut color. Rodney wondered if John took after his mother, if she was willowy and pale. 

“ _Damn_ this thing is heavy,” John grunted, and set it on the counter with a gasp and a slosh of ice. “Jesus Christ, dad, how much did you ask for?”

“It takes 42 muscles to frown, and only four to extend my arm and smack you upside the head,” the man said, beaming, and John groaned. “Oh, what? That one’ll never get old.”

“Rodney,” John said loudly, “this is my father, Rick Sheppard. Please ignore the puns. Pop, Rodney McKay. I hope you don’t mind I brought him along.”

“Of course not,” Mr. Sheppard said, and his eyes went cold and hard and held Rodney’s agonizing demise. 

“Pop,” John said gently, and clapped the man on the back. They shared a look between them, long suffering understanding on Mr. Sheppard’s face and gentle kindness on John’s, as if they’d had this conversation many, many times before. The elder Sheppard exhaled. “Well, any friend of John’s is a friend of mine,” he said, but before Rodney could offer his hand, Mr. Sheppard was hauling the cooler up. “Folks are gonna get here soon, go get the fixin’s, boys,” he said, and made his way down the beach.

John glanced at him, embarrassed and sweet, and rolled his eyes. “Excuse my dad, Rodney. He’s a good guy, just kind of old fashioned when it comes to…” he waved a hand between the two of them.

“Super gayness? Is it my shirt?”

It surprised another laugh out of John, and he shook his head, glancing at Rodney through his lashes. “You look fine,” he said, and something in his eyes said that Rodney looked damn well more than fine, and it sent fissions through Rodney’s belly. Even though they were standing there, giving each other the kinds of looks that made Dave snort loudly. John blushed and jerked his shoulder. “Come on.”

Within a matter of minutes the three of them had hauled down all the other food in the back storeroom down to the beach, where the elder Sheppard had already gotten the fire started. The pit seemed to be a permanent fixture of this little chunk of the island -- it was built with brick, and a metal grate sat over the dip, where embers were already flickering into a fire. Stones sat on the grate, enormous and gray, already beginning to glow orange underneath. John layered them with damp, seasoned seaweed from another cooler, then topped it off with a little splash of Corona, because “beer goes good with anything, seriously. Beer and pretzels are the lost cousins of the food pyramid.” 

Within fifteen minutes people started to arrive -- a beautiful, older woman wearing a sundress who kissed Mr. Sheppard on the cheek, a couple holding hands, two older gentleman who laughed uproariously and slapped Dave on the back, and more. Within a half hour the stones over the fire were red-hot, and the smells wafting out from underneath the layers of seaweed were heaven. There were children running and playing, an enormous dog barking cheerfully, and after an hour Dave backed his truck up onto the beach, opened the bed for the kids, and tuned the radio to classic oldies. People were laughing, eating, struggling with muscles, crunching through lobster tails. 

And through it all, Rodney watched John, watched him laugh, watched him teach the kids how to do the Twist, and something in him started waking up, coming to life, opening in his chest like a breath of air that had been too long in coming. John was beautiful in the blue dusk light, in the flickering lights from the bonfire that had replaced the clambake pit. He was all length and sensuality, as awkward on land dancing as he was graceful on his surfboard, but more than that, more than the gut-punch beauty of his face, there was a kindness in his eyes Rodney had forgotten existed. For the first time since the siege, maybe for the first time since he’d arrived in Atlantis, something vital Rodney didn’t even know was clenched eased. 

It didn’t hurt that the man was hot as _fire_.

He wasn’t surprised when, in the midst of his revelation, John’s eyes caught his, bright with merriment and something else, something deeper and more intimate, and mouthed, ‘Come with me’.

A beat. Two. Because he’d been hurt before, and no one would argue that he was a man more broken than whole.

But. _But_. 

John looked exactly as if he understood, and Rodney was powerless to refuse. 

John waved a goodbye to his father, and he and Rodney left, walking in silence over the beach. Behind them, the laughter of the clambake faded with the waves, and a cool breeze brushed across Rodney’s forehead, tickled the long hair along John’s neck. Rodney wanted nothing more than to run his fingers through it, see if it was as soft as it looked. Instead, he shoved his hand in his pocket, twitchy and sweaty with nerves. “Does it make me the girl here to ask where this is going?”

“Nope,” John said, warm and pleased and smiling again, _the_ most contagious smile ever because Rodney’s lips were already twitching up in response. John took hold of his arm, stopping them there on the beach. “My place is right up the road.”

“Your place,” Rodney repeated dumbly, and there it was again, the kick of excitement, the slow burn of arousal tingling through him. It had been so long he was almost surprised by his response. “You want us to…”

“Yeah,” John said, and pressed his lips softly along the corner of Rodney’s lips, and oh, God, he smelled like sea salt and something wholly unique to him. Rodney swallowed hard, only to feel John’s thumb gently brush along the bobbing knob. “I want to kiss you here,” he murmured, and brushed his mouth along Rodney’s adam’s apple. “And here,” another kiss, this time along his neck under his ear, and John’s hair, wonderfully soft, fell against his cheek. “I want to kiss you everywhere. You’ve been driving me crazy all day, you know that?”

“No, I,” he cleared his throat, aching everywhere, “I didn’t, uh. Know that. Why?”

“Why?” John echoed, his mouth busy at Rodney’s ear, doing something to the lobe that made Rodney’s knees want to go to liquid. “Because I can’t remember the last time I got this deep, this fast, is why.” 

It was possibly the most incredible thing anyone had ever said to him, only made better because Rodney had the gut feeling it wasn’t just a line, that it meant something, that John was being honest. 

They made it down the beach to the road, then to the small house set in a hollow of trees, overlooking the water. It was as salt-scored as The Roundhouse, charming in a bright sea-foam blue with white clapboard windows and an enormous oak door. It had the look of something old but tenderly loved and taken care of. The door, of course, was unlocked, and John tugged him through, almost shyly. “It was my grandfather’s. My pop bought a house little closer to town, and gave this place to me.” 

“It’s, uh,” Rodney said, as John closed the door. Heat and want flared in his belly. His pants grew tight. 

John smirked, as if he knew exactly what he was doing to Rodney’s body, and tipped his head thoughtfully. “Want to play a game?”

“Seeing as how your first game was a roaring success,” Rodney said, because _seriously_. His blood had never felt so hot, like it was boiling under the skin, turning his cheeks to fire. He was giddy with it, with this feeling of being completely out of himself, as if he were watching some man who wasn’t petty and jealous and also terrible with anyone who might want to have sex with him slumped there at the banister of the stairs.

“Different rules, this time,” John said, and twitched his thumb and forefinger at the first button of Rodney’s shirt. It opened, and he tugged at Rodney’s chest hair gently, probably just to see the breath stutter out of him. 

“Yes,” Rodney groaned, when John set his mouth back on his neck, pressed kisses softly down to the vee he’d just opened in his shirt. “Definitely a romance character.”

“I happen to think I’m not as predictable as all _that_ ,” John murmured lazily into his chest, flicking open another button, another. His thumb brushed against Rodney’s nipple and Christ, oh, he moaned, long and soft and deep. “Like that?”

“Yeah. Yes.” Rodney whispered, so John did it again, again, then unbuttoned another button and parted the sides of his shirt to lick the nipple into his mouth.

It was glorious, the seduction he’d anticipated. Want unfurled through him, through his belly and chest and groin, but more importantly, maybe the most importantly, a want in his heart he’d denied himself for longer than he could remember. 

He ducked his head and caught at John’s lips, tentative, then oh, God, _crushing_. An explosion of heat rocked up Rodney’s spine, because he was being kissed like he hadn’t been in so long. Sloppy and messy and wet, it consumed him, tongue and heat and John’s hands framing his face, clenched in his hair. Suddenly Rodney couldn’t get enough, couldn’t catch a breath, because that was John, his shoulders, his hair, the long line of his body. His hips thrust and Rodney was lost; he wrenched his mouth away from John’s and cried out, and John’s hands were there, clamped on his ass, rocking him up against him.

It was everything, mouths and hands and the heat, the aching need, and Rodney didn’t think he’d ever be able to get enough, not ever, this stranger who Rodney felt as if he’d known all his life. The moved, and something fell and broke behind them as they stumbled together up the stairs, and John shoved the door to the bedroom open with a bang.

Rodney didn’t know if he fell or if John pushed him, but he was flat on his back and there was skin, so much of it. In his haste to get his shirt off John popped the last three buttons, which made Rodney throw his head back and laugh like he hadn’t since he was a kid, at least until John shut him up by yanking the zip of his pants open and swallowing him down.

There was no defense against it, no control -- Rodney looked down, saw a flash of those lips wrapped bow-tight around Rodney’s cock, John’s fingers whitened at the tips where they clamped on Rodney’s hips, the delicate pink blush high in John’s cheeks -- and clenched his eyes shut. He was going to come, right now, he was almost there, until John pulled off and flipped him over. He opened his mouth to yell his complaint -- the words were there, right on his lips -- except John yanked his pants off and shoved his mouth between Rodney’s cheeks. Rodney didn’t do anything so embarrassing as _scream_ , but it was close, too close, that tongue pushing, sucking, only to be replaced with slick fingers, spearing him open and making him buck. John hit that spot and Rodney’s cock dribbled wet all over the sheets, his body wracked with shudders. John said, “Holy fuck,” and did it again, and again, and only when Rodney nearly did scream did John pull his fingers out and push his way home, huge and deep and Rodney convulsed, howling, because never in his life had he felt like this.

It was a blur, John thrusting, rocking the bed, the pleasure so bright it was like touching the surface of the sun. John reached around, smeared his clean hand up Rodney’s wet cock, over his belly, up to his nipples, up to his _mouth_ , and Rodney sobbed as those fingers slipped inside and set fireworks off behind his eyes.

He sucked, couldn’t help it, the bitter tang of his own precome hitting the roof of his mouth. Behind him John moaned, loud and guttural, hips snapping, then dragged his hand back down and took Rodney’s cock, stripped him hard and fast. Rodney worked his ass back into John’s cock so it would hit that spot inside that made him claw at the sheets, then forward into John’s fist.

He felt it before he heard it, John gasping, his thighs trembling against Rodney’s, pushing hard and deep and _in_. He swelled and Rodney moaned with loss, because that was John coming, right there, shaking, shallow, agonizing thrusts deep inside, and Rodney was hard, he was still hard, and he set his mouth on his arm and bit so the sounds wouldn’t come out.

John’s cock fucking _popped_ out of him and Rodney howled again, loud and dragging at his throat before he could muffle it. “Yeah,” John said, gravel-deep, and bodily pushed him over onto his back. John looked _wrecked_ , streaked with sweat, hair plastered to his face. He stroked down Rodney’s cock, worked him hard and tight, and that was good, fucking fantastic, but Rodney’s ass was _empty_. He whined, head thrashing, and oh, _oh_ , there was John, pushing back in, the condom cold but warming right up again. He wasn’t as hard anymore but he filled Rodney up, those places inside that scared the hell out of him. He stared up at John’s face, let him hitch his legs around his waist, let him pull his hips back so he was in John’s lap. Deep. Perfect.

“Yeah,” John said again, muffled into Rodney’s neck, his mouth, hot and bright and in. John worked him, shallow thrusts, fingers tight around Rodney’s cock, then that _spot_. He ground against it and oh, oh _fuck_ , and Rodney sobbed into John’s lips, around John’s tongue. It was toe-clenching good, eyes-rolling-back good, because John had already come and Rodney knew he had to be sensitive, but there he was, and orgasm leapt like fire into the back’s of Rodney’s eyes, in the pit of his stomach, in the curve of his thighs were John was making himself at home. He ducked his head and sucked Rodney’s nipple, dropped his hand and squeezed Rodney’s cock, and that was it, he was done, Rodney came and came all over the both of them. The pleasure was almost more than he could stand, John’s thumb sweeping over the dribbling slit, squeezing, hard against his prostate, and oh, it was long and deep and so damn good in a way sex hadn’t been in too long.

He crested the wave and pressed his mouth against John’s, and didn’t at all say his name.


	3. Stargate Atlantis Gen AU: Ad Astra Per Ardua - WIP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The honest truth of it was that Norin of Ankasa was a scoundrel, and he damn well knew it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was cowritten with [emptybackpack](http://emptybackpack.livejournal.com/), and though we never finished it of course, we had big ideas for it. The piece we did write was too good not to share.

The honest truth of it was that Norin of Ankasa was a scoundrel, and he damn well knew it.

Norin had made and lost his fortune selling out others, either to the enemy or to the many bounty hunters who roamed the streets of Kamus, the little dirt ball of a planet he'd found himself calling home. It was a good business, the swift trade of information and other valuable goods, whatever form those goods might have taken. In fact, it'd been lucrative for a lot longer than Norin thought he'd be alive.

Norin had done pretty damn well for himself in the years the Wraith slept. Drink had flowed, desperate girls painted up and dressed down had decorated his bed, and his pockets had swollen themselves at the seams with treasure. Norin hadn't been a fool, either; he'd known it wouldn't be long before the Wraith woke and started their scourge again, as they'd done for so many years, so Norin had saved every dime not devoted to his standard of living. He'd buried it on every planet in the cluster closest to Ankasa, hiding it away on empty worlds until the time came when he'd need it. 

Norin's downfall had been the drink. 

And now here he was, sitting on a bench along the far wall of the drinkhouse in the heart of this half-assed, awful little world, people watching. Though perhaps people watching wasn't quite the right word -- it was more like patiently stalking prey. 

He was nursing a cup of the weak house ale, though it sure as hell wasn't doing anything for him. Tasted like antiseptic. He was thinking maybe he'd go home early, call it a night, maybe convince one of the pretty dames thirty cycles his junior to warm his bed tonight, when a group of four walked through the door. It didn’t take a seer to know they weren’t from around here, in the manner of their dress and speech. They were the first remotely easy targets who'd walked in all night, and for three nights before that he hadn't been able to make anything better.

Two of them, the two who looked at least a little more adapted to the locality, split off from the group and went to talk to somebody they'd spotted all the way across the room from him. Fantastic. The other two walked up to the bar and stood against it, directing orders to the bartender. The taller one, who looked like he was probably the harder target to go for, lanky but strong under a lazy exterior, turned around and leaned back against the rails of the bar. Norin stood up and started casually drifting his way through the crowded room.

He got close enough to hear what they were talking about (there was always the possibility that they were, oh, visiting dignitaries with a whole bevy of bodyguards floating about who he really didn't want to screw with -- that was the sort of mistake he'd only make once). The guy he'd picked as his likely target was talking about trading for something, some sort of chemical it sounded like, though nothing Norin had ever heard of. It didn’t sound like they were Wraith elixir traders, either, desperate to buy or sell the taboo potion that had been around since long before Norin’s birth. 

Maybe they'd have something valuable, or at least some sort of currency. They didn't seem to be carrying a lot of baggage, so paper currency, maybe some sort of credit. Easy to lift, especially because it was damned obvious the shorter one, and coincidently Norin’s target, had a bum wing. Norin had been in enough battle to catch it right off, the way he held himself, the stiffness in his back, the almost careful way he kept his arm tucked close on his right side, as if guarding against pain. 

The taller one set his cup of house piss down on the bar. "Gotta hit the head. See if you can ask the bartender if there’s a place to stay the night around here," he said, and wandered off toward the back door of the drink-house. Norin's target waved his hand, trying to catch the bartender's attention. Easy pickings, really; even the flash of guilt at stealing from a crippled man wasn’t enough to deter him.

Norin approached him slowly, watching as he got progressively more impatient that the bartender was chatting with customers. He looked like he had something in the back right pocket of his pants, clearly visible now that he was leaning heavily against the bar surface, almost to the point of reaching over it. Such an easy target.

Norin took a breath and walked up to him swiftly from behind, directly the opposite angle that the bartender was on. He brushed his hand across the guy's pocket, and suddenly the man was spinning around, doing something Norin couldn't even visually process with his arm that had Norin's forearm trapped between the guy's elbow and his hand, running parallel. It was pretty painful. He was fairly sure he wasn't naturally that double-jointed.

A low, gruff voice said from behind him, right into his ear, "If I apply any more pressure it'll snap your ulna. That's a bone in your arm, by the way. Thought you should know."

It damned well felt like something was going to snap, something vital and very much needed. "I... I didn't mean anything by it."

"Really," the man said, breathing quietly into his neck. His fingers squeezed on Norin's wrist and something inside sang sharply. He kept it clenched behind his teeth, but just only. "Because to me, it seemed like you were going to do a little friendly pick-pocketing." A pause, and his voice fell, something dark and dangerous. Sweat broke out all over Norin's body, along his forehead and upper lip, cold down the center of his back. "I don't like it when people try to take my things."

"Yes, I... I understand, I'm sorry."

The others in the man's party had noticed what was happening, were headed to them, and suddenly Norin realized, with a sick sort of certainty, that he'd underestimated this situation, over-calculated his own skills. He'd taken the man's injury for granted. Right at the moment he didn't feel very injured, his fingers like a vice straining the tender muscles in Norin's arm. He couldn't help a whimper.

The tall man who'd gone off to the head stepped up close to them, and said casually, "You make a friend wherever we go, doncha McKay?"

The man behind him snorted. "I'm a friendly guy."

"So I've noticed." The man shifted to peer into Norin's face. He had a wild shock of hair and bright cuna eyes, eyes that looked as if they should glow in the dark, eyes that were shadowed and had Norin's death in them. Norin trembled so hard the man behind him tensed his grip, and he cried out, a sharp, broken sound even to his own ears as his arm was mercilessly twisted. The tall man smirked just slightly. "Here's the thing. McKay -- that's the guy slowly but surely breaking your arm -- he's a mean little bastard. He isn't much one for the physical stuff, though, not really. That's usually their job," and he jerked a shoulder at where the man and woman who'd separated from them were standing. The man, so tall his head almost hit the ceiling, smirked as well, a cold look in the face of someone so young. The woman looked as if all it would take was one false move and the weapon in her arms would discharge. "We're at a crossroads, now. You've got two options. One, I step aside and let my friends do what they very obviously had intended to do if I hadn't come out of the bathroom when I did. It's your luck I didn't have to take a shit. Or two, we sit down, have a drink, and you tell me what I want to know."

"What," Norin asked, his voice trembling so hard he didn't recognize it. "What do you want to know?"

"Taking the second option. Wise," the man said, and waved a hand. Suddenly his arm was free, and he clenched his teeth against the wave of pain that radiated from his neck to his fingertips. They tingled, and he moaned pitifully. The enormous man snorted rudely, and Norin cringed, clenching his wrist between his fingers.

It was as they were herding him back towards a secluded corner of the drink house that Norin realized, with a kind of abstract horror, that no one else in the bar had paid their little scene any mind. In fact, it had all been so loud in the room that not even Rashal, the keeper, so much as glanced their way. 

The large man shoved him into the booth and crowded him in, without a way to escape. The other men, McKay and Cuna Eyes, sidled slowly in on the opposite side. The woman took a seat at the edge of the table, her weapon coming down with a soft _clunk_ on the wooden table. 

Cuna Eyes leaned over. "This is how it's going to work. I'm going to ask you a question, and you're going to answer." Norin startled and jerked away, or at least tried to, because the enormous man beside him had snatched his hand in one big, meaty paw, and produced an incredibly small, incredibly sharp little blade out of the collar of his shirt. The cold sweat returned, soaking the back of Norin's thin tunic. "For each question you don't answer the way I like, my pal is going to cut off one of your fingers."

Norin whimpered and clenched his eyes shut. It was a nightmare, a horrible nightmare that any moment he was going to wake up from. "Gods. I’ll answer, I’ll _answer_ ."

"Ah, see?" Cuna Eyes said warmly. If one hadn't been looking at him, they'd have mistaken the smile for friendly. Norin was all too aware that his life teetered on the edge of that smile. "Smart man, I'm tellin' ya." He propped his hands on the table, laced his fingers. "Why were you going for McKay's pocket? And remember," he said, a tilt to his head. "Be honest."

"I..." He bit back a squeal, the man mountain's fingers hot and tense around his wrist, grinding the bones together. "I thought I could t-trade it."

"To who?"

"T-To the black smith in Terralon, who has my knives."

"Ah," Cuna Eyes said, nodding as if he understood completely. "Any reason why he might want this in particular?" he asked, and motioned a hand to McKay, who took the very item that Norin had been after out of his pocket, setting it carefully on the table. 

"It... it looks like Ancestor technology." The man mountain clenched his wrist again, and Norin trembled, sweat running into his eyes. "Please, please, that's all! I didn’t even know what it was, but now that I’ve seen it I know he would have liked it, because he's always bartering with other people who find it useful, even though _everyone_ knows it’s useless. He'd give me at least three of my knives back, _four_ maybe if I could make it light up like your friend McKay is doing there, and I really need them back." 

Cuna Eyes tsked quietly. "I have a feeling you aren't telling us the whole story," he said, and waved a hand.

To Norin's horror, the mountain man set his tiny knife on his little finger, and pressed ever so gently. Blood welled around the silver blade, stinging, and Norin choked, "Please!"

The man mountain stopped, though Norin didn't know who or why by that point. He was openly crying like he'd never done, not _ever_ , not even when Amrav and his goons grabbed him on Puarta and tried to sell him to repay their debts to the Foreman, not even when the pretty young woman he'd wanted to marry in his youth got snatched out from under his nose by his cousin. 

McKay leaned over, carefully, quietly. "Do you know who the blacksmith in Terralon would pass this along to?"

"No," Norin sobbed, and when the mountain man brought his knife back to his little finger, the blade still red with blood, Norin choked, "No, dammit, no, I don't know! I don't know, please!"

Cuna Eyes waved a few fingers, bringing his beast to heel. "Alright, friend. What's your name?"

"Norin.” 

"Norin, I know of this Terralon," the woman suddenly murmured, bringing Norin's attention back to her for the first time in what felt like hours. He was making a fool of himself in front of this beautiful woman and shame licked at him, even if he was smart enough to know that his terror was warranted. He gazed at her, hoping she'd help him, something, but she merely frowned, thinking. "I have been to this world."

"You have?" Cuna Eyes asked, and peered at her. "How sure are you?"

"I..." The woman frowned, staring into the distance. "It has been many years. My father took me there once or twice... if I am remembering correctly, it is a world rich with a fruit very much like your tomato. The women there are very skilled at textile weaving cloth, though the flax that grows along the banks of their many rivers is only used for hardy fabrics -- tents, rugs."

"Trade economy?"

"I do not remember any markets, but it has been many, many years since I have been to Terralon. It is entirely possible that the void left by Marcen has let it become an established epicenter for this quadrant of the galaxy."

Norin stared at them, because they couldn't be saying what he thought they were saying. "Marcen?"

The woman frowned at him, but where before her eyes had been filled with anger, now there was pity, and fatigue, and understanding. "Norin, my name is Teyla Emmagan of Athos. My people have belonged to the trade circuit of Marcen for many, many years, until only recently. Marcen is gone, culled by the Wraith." She leaned forward. "You must think, very, very carefully. This blacksmith in Terralon. Who or where would goods such as this Ancestor's trinket go to?"

"I--" He didn't know, gods, he didn't know, but Cuna Eyes was staring at him again like he could look right through him, and the mountain man was twirling the knife in the air, and McKay, despite his injury, looked as if he was fully capable of leaping across the table and killing him before he blinked twice. He looked at the woman as beseechingly as possible, hoping she could -- _would_ \-- understand. "I don't know. Please, you have to understand, people don't like me!" McKay snorted, and Norin rushed, "They don't willingly share this kind of information with me."

"Ah, but you see, that's the beauty of it," Cuna Eyes said, and leaned forward. "We know that _you_ know how to get it."

And that, Norin figured, was exactly why people thought he was a scoundrel.

 

.

Kamus at dusk lived up to its namesake. In the light of the fading sun it was little more than a dust ball, the thrust of mountains in the distance, and the sweet, rotten smell of desert death cooling from the baked ground. Kamus at dusk was what had originally appealed to Norin in the first place, because the dying Kamus day reminded Norin a lot of other places, other worlds, other lives before this one. If anyone had bothered asking him, Norin would have cheerfully told them that, on his better days, he was a philosophical sort of scoundrel.

Cuna Eyes, after realizing that Norin, one, wasn't going anywhere, two, had no choice in the matter because he liked his fingers, thank you, and three, was the sort of man who would sell his own grandmother (not that he'd ever bothered hiding the fact), had loosened his death grip on Norin's already throbbing arm, had let him walk his own pace. No one spared them a glance. While Norin wasn't the most liked of men, he'd at least thought these people would give him a hand in his time of need. Just went to show, everyone in the damned galaxy looked out for number one.

McKay and the mountain man followed along, the woman, Teyla, standing beside him. She was beautiful, slim and strong, and had Norin been twenty years and a full head of hair younger, he may have considered bribing Cuna Eyes for her. As it was, he thought she'd have his balls, first, and while Norin didn't have much use for them anymore, he'd gotten used to them and wanted to part this world with them still attached. 

With this thought in mind, he was careful to keep his hands where she could see them and his intent clear. The four of them obviously didn’t have any intention of staying at the inn now that they'd snagged their prey. He convinced himself his hands absolutely were not trembling as he opened the door to the little room he rented.

The mountain man passed him, sniffing carefully in a way that reminded Norin of those men in the ranks back home, the ones trained to catch explosives just by the chemical scent of the air. He was impressed despite himself, seeing as how Norin wasn't the type of man to clean up after himself.

"Well, uh," he said, as Teyla closed the door behind them. "Here. Here we are."

"Here we are," Cuna Eyes said, and ushered them inside. 

 

.

It was only later, after things had calmed, that Norin was able to sneak back to where Sheppard and McKay have holed themselves up. His second room, more storage place for his many treasures than spare bedroom, was lit with a glow from a fireplace too-long unused, the woodsy scent acrid and sharp in his nose. He’d startled at first by the flash of skin by these over-dressed off-worlders, by the quiet words from Sheppard and the low, animalistic sounds of pain. It was then that Norin saw McKay, saw what it is he’d been hiding, and cold leeched through him.

McKay’s torso was long and his shoulders broad, but his right side, the side he’d been holding tightly in the few short hours he’s known him, was one long, ragged, torturous wound. The skin had healed badly, probably like the bones and tissue underneath, and he held himself so stiffly that Norin knew he was in chronic pain. Sheppard did his best to massage the wound, slick on his hands, working the muscle in McKay’s ruined shoulder and ravaged flank until McKay’s fingers uncurled and his neck tipped forward. He moaned, a guttural sound of pain, and Sheppard shushed him quietly with the quick, easy touches of a man practiced in this awful mockery of comfort.

“See anything you find interesting?”

Norin jerked, startled, but the man mountain, Ronon, simply snagged him by the elbow with claws like iron and steered him quietly away from the two men in the room. It wasn’t until they were in the living space that the man mountain’s face twisted, a slow, easy smile that held no amusement and begged for him to make a wrong move. Norin froze, only daring to move when the woman, Teyla, murmured, “Ronon.”

“I don’t like nosy people.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Norin said, and hated himself for his shaking voice.

Ronon merely snorted and resumed his pacing, a thick clomping stalk back and forth across the room. He was a handsome young man, broad shoulders, hair shorn short with either pestilence or necessity. The woman, too, had a similar style, one Norin had always associated with traveling the open road. He’d been the unwilling host to more lice in his time than he’d ever thought possible not to recognize kindred spirits, even those who, at the moment, had very few excuses to keep him alive.

He took a long drink from his flask, the liquor burning like fire up into his nose and down low into his belly. He swallowed, throat ticking. “He needs a healer.”

“That’s none of your concern.” Ronon lunged down over him, eyes flashing bright and green and furious in his face. “You mind your own fucking business.”

“We have seen a healer,” Teyla said quietly, touching Ronon’s arm. He backed off, snarling, and paced to the door and back again. Teyla, serenity incarnate, sat down next to Norin quietly, balancing her weapon deceptively calm. “Which is why we need to know who it is your friend would sell our Ancestor’s trinket to. We know of a people who could help us.”

“If you speak of the Hothans, you’re years too late,” Norin said, and took a healthy swig of his beer, straight from the flask. “Damned cocky is what they were. Technology with more holes in it than cheese.”

“Not the Hothan people, Norin,” Teyla said quietly. Behind her, Ronon growled low in his throat, but Teyla, unconcerned in the face of the bestial sound, simply said, “We speak of the people who reside in the City of the Ancestors.”

Norin frowned sharply. “The Tauri?”

Teyla inclined her head. “We have heard they have advanced medical expertise beyond the scope of many worlds.”

Norin frowned again, sharply, because -- “Surely you’ve heard.”

“Heard?”

Yes, well, it wasn’t his business to wipe this girl’s hopes away, but Norin couldn’t stand the look of naked hope on her face for one more moment. “Woman, the Tauri have fallen. Wiped clean by the Wraith.”

The temperature in the room dropped several degrees, and Teyla, her eyes damp and bright, looked over his shoulder.

Cuna Eyes stood in his hallway, as pale as a spirit. The only sound in the living space were his fast, shaken breathing. Teyla stood, “John,” but he slashed a hand through the air, clenched his eyes shut. A long moment, two, and then he crossed the room to their packs at the door, opening a flap and carefully retrieving a small white box. “They’re not dead.”

“John--”

“They’re not. I don’t give a shit what you heard, Norin.”

“My information may be wrong,” Norin admitted, even though he knew it wasn’t. “I can bring you to someone who can tell you more.”

“If we let you live,” Ronon said, and showed his teeth.


	4. Stargate Atlantis Gen AU: 36 Days - Short Fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her father had done her a great disservice, Teyla had once thought, to raise her the way he had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only time I dallied in horror in the SGA fandom. I never finished this because it freaked me out too much.

Her father had done her a great disservice, Teyla had once thought, to raise her the way he had.

She could still feel the frustration that had plagued her childhood as if she were still young and small enough to sit on her father’s knee. “Why?” he would ask, _he was always asking_ , to everything Teyla knew to be true. When she answered him, he would laugh and laugh, eyes bright with mirth, and make her think again until Teyla’s certainty was no longer so certain, until she didn’t know up from down. 

Her father had taught her to believe in nature, and to disbelieve it. To trust in her own instincts, and always be unwilling to put her faith completely in what she thought was true. Her father had been a man who believed in nothing, saw truth in everything, and never settled for easy answers.

It was because of her father that when the mysterious new people came through the Ring, when they told her where they came from, that Teyla did not fall apart. Finding out her gods were people, imperfect people at that, had hurt her, yes, but she had not crumbled under the weight of it. Teyla learned. All the beliefs her father had never let her indulge in, the beliefs her people had always followed with a single minded intensity, fell around her ears. She learned of the Ancients, her Ancestors and yet not at all. She learned of their glorious city, and their abandonment. She learned that the people who had returned to Atlantis were the true children of the Ancestors, but history had been long and hard, and they were as helpless as she. She looked into John Sheppard’s eyes and saw fear, and wonder, and she knew then that her father had been right to teach her as he had.

“Fan out!” Colonel Sheppard snapped. 

Moving as one, all the men who escorted the Colonel spread, weapons at the ready, as gracefully as if the Colonel were directing his own arm to move where he wished it to go. 

The gray-green windows of Atlantis remained as they had been since they opened the transporter to this section, wet with condensation, shadowed by the dark depths of the ocean. Mold crawled up the walls, gathered in the dark corners where not even the meager light the ocean let through could touch, like the sickly green of illness. Atlantis seemed to weep with pain, the dull lights along the corridor pulsing weakly. If she felt this way Teyla could not imagine what it felt like for Colonel Sheppard, who carried Atlantis deep within him. 

The Colonel walked onward beside her, his eyes darting between his line of sight and his life signs detector. In the weak light he looked older than his years. “Any surprises we need to know about, Teyla?”

“I am not sensing any Wraith, Colonel. And yet, something is not quite right. It feels…”

Ronon did not so much as blink their way. “Sheppard.”

“I know.” He motioned Lorne and his men forward without ever moving his eyes to them. 

At the next turn they found themselves at the top of a flight of stairs, as long as those in the control room. The stairs swallowed the light from their weapons halfway down, and the unmistakable sound of dripping water echoed from below. The Colonel never so much as hesitated, yet insisted on being the first to lead them down the steps. Ten stairs down, they encountered water. Three more steps to the floor below, and it reached Teyla’s waist. 

“Command, you copy?” The light of the Colonel’s weapon skipped across the walls. 

_”Yes, Colonel, we hear you_ ,” Mr. Woolsey said. Teyla could picture him, hands behind his back as was his way, lips pinched.

“It’s pretty bad down here. Water damage. We’re walking in four foot sewage.” What he did not say was blatantly obvious -- there was no possible way anyone could have survived in such conditions. The air itself was thick with disease and mold -- beside her, Major Lorne was trying to suppress the coughing that wracked his frame. He was not alone -- even Ronon seemed affected.

 _”Yes, it is the deepest section of Atlantis. We knew there was damage, Colonel,_ ” Dr. Zelenka said. _”Turn another left. You will come on a door with a blue, possibly green panel_.”

The Colonel nodded, signaling his men forward. “I see it.”

_”It is an older model of the door locks we have in newer parts of the city. It requires touch as well as mental component.”_

Sweat had broken out over the Colonel’s top lip. They had come onto the edge of a door; once beautiful panels lining the door had rusted and cracked in many places. Bright light was coming from the cracks, dim, yet undoubtedly a taste of what was within, like a rotting wound on a limb grown dead with sickness. 

There was no time to question what they were doing. With a sharp nod, the Colonel motioned to his remaining men, “Cover me,” and touched the panel.

Immediately, all six rusted panels opened and the most brilliant white light cascaded forth. Teyla thought she’d been prepared, and yet she heard herself and other male voices cry out -- the sharp light blinded. It took her many terrified moments, her body tensed and coiled tight, to blink the spots away.

In the center of the room, connected to many thousands of thin, translucent wires and tubes, a single slender metal object sat in the midst of the dazzling light. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen, and yet, the Atlantean design and the words on the smooth, polished surface were unmistakable. It sat alone in a blank room -- aside from the wires the walls were smooth and black, slightly rounded. To Teyla, it felt not unlike stepping inside of a spider’s nest. The pod itself was particularly fearsome, in its thick network of wiring. A growing sense of dread tightened her chest.

“Hold your positions.”

Colonel Sheppard climbed the steps into the room, dripping, his uniform plastered to his body. He stepped over the wires and wove around the tubes. It was tricky business, for in some areas they were as thick as web, and it was soon more than obvious that even a man as slender and flexible as he would not be able to pass. Less so, when he accidentally touched one of them and erupted with curses. From where she stood, Teyla had seen the electricity zing across the connection between flesh and wire.

He returned, frustration in his eyes, and tapped his comm. His arm was bright red with new burn. “Yeah, I’m here.”

 _“What have you found?_ ” Dr. Zelenka asked. 

“Egg shaped room. A lot of bright light, coming from the object in the middle of the--” Sheppard suddenly snarled, the lines his face had developed these long weeks more pronounced than ever. “It’s a pod, Doc, a goddamned pod, straight out of a B horror movie. There’s wiring coming out of the walls, all connected to it.”

_“Wraith-tech?”_

“Can’t be sure, but I don’t think so. Wraith-tech is generally more _Aliens_ looking, and this stuff looks like the wiring that goes through Atlantis. It gave me a nasty shock when I tried to pass. Tell me I can cut through it.”

Dr. Zelenka muttered something over the radio, none of it in their common language, and yet Teyla found herself able to understand the sentiment. The situation had gone from bad to worse, as the Colonel was fond of saying. _”We have no idea what it does. You could be cutting any number of things needed to keep the pod running, or the room running._ ” He could be heard, for a moment, arguing angrily with Woolsey, before, _“Is dangerous?”_

Colonel Sheppard’s expression hardened. “I don’t want anyone down here until I know for sure.”

Realization came with a sweet sort of clarity. To bring Dr. Zelenka, they would need to confirm what they all knew. The solution was simple. Immediately, Teyla climbed the steps and shucked her vest and weapon, her jacket and boots. “I will go, Colonel.”

“Teyla--”

“Colonel,” she said, and touched his shoulder. “You could not pass but I am much smaller. I can do this.”

His eyes were pained behind the mask he wore. She could hear what was screaming from them as clearly as if he’d said it. They both knew what was at stake. Beside the Colonel, Ronon’s furious and almost defeated expression twisted at her heart. This was not what they had expected. “We’ll keep it out of the way.”

All eyes turned to the Colonel. His face was stretched tight, emotionless, but she knew his answer before he opened his mouth. “Do it.”

Navigating the thick tubes and wires proved to be more difficult than she had imagined. She had no idea what they did or what they were for, but like the Colonel, she was wary of disturbing any of it. She moved as slick as a serpent, slithering through and contorting her body in ways no one as flexible as she could have done. Some of the wires hurt and some did not; once, when she brushed a particular one, it stung across her side, raising a nasty red welt. Others, she forced her body through, despite the Colonel’s growing voice, worried, then angry, behind her.

Perhaps the object did not perceive her as a threat -- perhaps it could not sense her presence at all, without the ATA gene, even though she stood right beside it. Regardless, the lights dimmed until the pod itself was the only thing left illuminated under the thick tangle of wires. She was ensnared, none of it stinging at the moment, but she was one handed. With all her strength, she contorted her body until she could reach her blouse, and ripped the bottom hem off. Using her teeth, she fashioned a sort of bandage for her hand, and with it, she brushed some of the wires away to look within. What she saw was out of her worst nightmare.

“Teyla?”

She clenched her eyes shut then opened them again, unable to believe what she was seeing and yet choking on the grief threatening to undo her. She thought she had been prepared; she had seen so much death in her lifetime. And yet to see a flame such as this snuffed out, never again to discover the beauty the Ancestors had hidden away in the heart of Atlantis, brought Teyla such grief that she could not speak through it.

“Teyla? Dammit, get her out of there,” the Colonel said, and she could hear the men moving. 

She forced her clenched throat to open, for words to come free. She sounded choked, unlike herself, and the sob rose unbidden. “Wait. I have found him. Colonel Sheppard, he is… I am so sorry, he--”

The corpse lying in the pod opened its eyes, and Teyla looked into them, blurred with cataracts, filmy but for the merest hint of blue. For a moment she was horrified, disbelieving, but then those eyes met her own and filled with tears. As they fell down the sides of his face, Teyla heard herself scream, “ _He is alive!_ ”

 

.

The brainless, dim-witted _idiot_ of a man.

Some wonders never ceased. How anyone could be so brilliant -- not merely intelligent, but _brilliant_ \-- like Rodney and get himself into these situations threatened to turn Radek’s brain to mush. He knew if he could solve why Rodney and his never-ending curiosity equaled disaster, he would win a Nobel prize, hands down. 

“Hey, Doc.”

“Colonel.” Radek dumped his equipment to the ground. The scientists he’d brought with him swarmed around him, unpacking their own tools and already speaking a mile a minute.

Within the time it had taken him to get his equipment and his scientists and make the trip down here, to the deepest part of Atlantis, Major Lorne and Colonel Sheppard had set up several pulley systems to keep some of the wiring back. It was obvious why. No one but Teyla could have maneuvered it to get so close. She was standing beside the -- Radek refused to call it a _pod_ \-- murmuring gently, where Radek’s idiotic, shit-for-brains boss had trussed himself for the last four weeks, five days, twelve hours and twenty one minutes.

Everything, and everyone, was wet. The sludge from outside, the sludge Radek was _wearing_ , painted the floor in footprints, the wires, the walls. It had the unmistakable scent Radek remembered from his childhood; he had grown up only a mile away from the busiest port in Prague, and even a miles distance had done little to eradicate the smell of mold, fishery, and the salt of the water.

Colonel Sheppard stood amongst it, his hands firm on his hips, his mouth in a tight line. He was as close to snapping as Radek had seen in some time. “Want to fill me in, Doc?”

“Ah, yes,” Radek said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “One moment please.”

The room was roughly the size of the mess hall, but with so much tubing, it was impossible to tell if the smallest touch could do fatal damage. Radek climbed onto the box holding his equipment. “I need Simpson, Kasunagi, Porter, O’Conner and Herrero. Everyone else, please wait outside.” 

Radek’s team, the best of the brightest they’d brought with them to Atlantis, descended like a cloud of hornets, and within moments, they were connected to the main frame, to the database, and to one another. “We did not know this section of Atlantis existed, Colonel,” Radek said, to the Colonel’s unasked question behind him. “We did not even know there was a level this deep until the sensor went off a few hours ago.”

“So you’re saying you have no idea what the hell this thing is.”

“No. But, I will find out.” Radek pointed to his colleagues. “Porter, you will find conduits for life support. Will be most likely point of entry to the crystals. Simpson, you will find what is above, below, and to the sides of this room.”

Colonel Sheppard nodded to Major Lorne. “Escort her. Check in every fifteen minutes.”

“Kasunagi, Herrero, O’Conner, with me.” Radek took up his laptop, clipped his belt of tools on, and motioned for Sheppard to follow. “Colonel, this room should not exist.”

The Colonel’s frown turned sharp. “Excuse me?”

“It is as I say. Should not exist. This entire level should not exist, especially after the siege, or the storm, or even after we first arrived and many sections of the shield failed to keep the ocean back.”

“You’re saying this place isn’t even in the schematics?”

Radek nodded. “Nothing. However, it is in the database. Dr. Himenez is upstairs researching now. All we know for sure is that this is a form of stasis chamber, only, he is awake. It may be a very early model, perhaps something entirely different -- I simply do not know.”

Doctor Beckett arrived in that moment, the wheels of his gurney clattering, covered in sludge from the waist down and panting. “I’m here, what’s happening? Is it really him?”

“Good, we don’t know yet, and yes,” Sheppard answered, and they moved away to speak, leaving Radek with his work.

It was then like clockwork. A long time passed, Radek was sure, but he was lost in this. His sister, a surgeon, once remarked that operating was timeless -- six or sixteen hours, it did not matter, for time had stopped and she was in the moment. This was what it felt like to Radek. Time had become relative. He was suspended in nothingness, no time, nor space, but only this. It seemed right, when Simpson radioed that there was nothing around this room -- as if it were in its own black hole, there were no entrances to it, not even walls to cut through. It was as if the room, too, was suspended, the door they had come through the only way to slip into this pocket of antimatter where all the rules were upside down.

It was only while imputing his hundredth or thousandth crystal that he heard Beckett, buzzing around his head. “Teyla?”

“I am fine,” she said, though the thickness in her voice and the tremor of her words did not sound fine at all. “What do you need, Doctor?”

“How’s our patient?”

“He is -- Dr. McKay,” Teyla interrupted. Despite the shaking of her small body, her voice was now firm, her eyes warm where they looked through the glass. Her hands were pressed gently against it. Radek swore he could almost see the answering hand trying to touch hers. “You must calm.”

“Teyla,” the Colonel said, his voice tight. 

“He is very frightened. And yet he knows we will not leave him, don’t you, Rodney? We have found you, there is no longer reason to fear.” 

Now, Radek was not merely imagining it. He saw Rodney’s hands, so thin, so white, pushing at the glass weakly. Radek’s heart burned, fury and pity both.

It was Ronon who said, his voice barely controlled, “Get him out.”

Then Radek’s work was tinged with a sort of desperation. Not for the first time, the intelligence of his people shown like a bright star. As carefully as Penelope at her loom, they unwove and sorted. Wires that lay unneeded were cut and pulled aside by the Marines. The pulleys were used to great effectiveness.

The wrongness began to eat at Radek’s nerves. He kept looking over his shoulder, tense as a buckling tree branch, and was not alone in this. The Colonel had ceased talking altogether. Only Beckett asked for checkups every five minutes on his patient. 

And then, very suddenly, there was a horrible sound, a scream of metal, a roar of air. Later, he would think how sudden it had all been. One moment, Radek was detaching the ripped innards of the wall, the next Colonel Sheppard roared, “Get down!”

Radek was not a stupid man. The moment the Colonel shouted this, he fell, though the others did not respond in such a way. Radek watched, horrified, as all the many thousands of wires still attached to the pod suddenly retracted. It was the instinct of his youth that made him cover his head with his arms and curl into as small a ball as he could.

The pulleys gave, squealing as they were ripped apart. Wires whipped through the air; Radek saw Porter fall, heard Teyla’s shrill cry. It was a rush of noise in a vacuum, so loud and so deep it hurt in Radek’s chest. The walls left undamaged opened, pulling, and the horrible screech of metal on metal was made all the worse by the screaming.

The walls gave, crunching in on themselves like aluminum cans, then sucked away by whatever surrounded this room. It was a black -- oh, God, Radek had been right -- void, the freezing cold ocean roaring around them. Woolsey shouted in his ear, a tiny voice in the nothingness enveloping them. Chunks of the floor around him were ripped free and sucked away, and Radek pulled himself tighter, cupping his head.

It may have been only a few seconds, or several hours. Radek was no longer aware of time in this place of destruction and blood. He would die here. He would die here, trying to save Rodney’s ungrateful ass. 

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, and with one last terrible roar of sound, the walls closed, smoothed, and the room fell silent.

He heard first, a man sobbing. And then, a woman. And then the Colonel, breathing in great heaving pants beside him. 

Radek lifted his head, and just as suddenly wished he hadn’t. 

Porter, or what was left of him, lay in a mangled mess across from the worst of where the tangle of wires had been. He had been thrown over the pod itself, which sat darkened and red with gore from his body. Teyla stood, as if shock alone was keeping her upright, her body a mess of cuts that sheeted down her body and painted her skin crimson. Her cheek rested on the glass. 

Silence, yes, but for the rough pound of Radek’s heart, the choking gasps from Teyla, the clicking of Ancient technology easing and stopping, and Rodney, his white hands pushing from within the pod, his voice a muffled scream.


	5. Stargate Atlantis Gen snippet -- Short Fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was nothing graceful about it; one minute Rodney was there, bitching away, and the next he folded in on himself like a cardboard box in a rainstorm, just slipped away mid word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one came to me as a dream -- I literally woke up in the middle of the night and wrote it out. It was an excellent writing exercise, and because I'm allergic to sad endings, in my head this always turned out alright.

There was nothing graceful about it; one minute Rodney was there, bitching away, and the next he folded in on himself like a cardboard box in a rainstorm, just slipped away mid word. There was an explosion of bright, blinding light, and when he could see again John had only seconds to realize the unbelievable, that the Nuew had fucked them over, before John was running harder than when the Taliban had been after him, packing bullets that hit like bee stings and bled you out quicker than being sliced hole to hole. 

He ran, and thought that this was the wrong kind of day for shit like this to go down, because they’d been eating _donut things_ , and the sun had been shining, and it had felt a little like a Sunday afternoon somewhere a lot like home. The Nuew were people they already knew, folks they’d been trading with for two years, and never could John have realized that he was going to get royally fucked over by them while they were serving him something frothy that tasted a hell of a lot like beer. 

Rodney was sobbing, hysterical with the kind of pain John associated with belly wounds and mother’s dying and turning into a six foot bug. He screamed with every one of Ronon’s footsteps, rising and falling like an ice pick to John’s brain, drilling deep and pricking against nerves already stinging with the most desperate fear he’d ever felt. 

“Go, go, go!” John roared, and peppered the ground with bullet fire behind him, seeing nothing but sky and roof lines and the streaming gray uniforms coming for them.

_"Colonel Sheppard!”_

They crossed from pavement to dirt road and finally crashed into the woods outside the Nuew city. He slapped his comm, “Teyla,”, following Ronon because he didn’t have the sense of direction God gave a jackass. “We’re almost there, almost--”

Fire lit John’s back from the inside. He saw the world go sick, swirling around him like the bottom of a drain. He didn’t lose his footing, a fact which he was pretty damn proud of, only to have Ronon tackle him to the ground a second later as the _whoosh_ of bullets flew past his ear. They bit into the ground like tiny missiles, sharp enough to send rocks stinging. John knew that sound anywhere; they had Rodney’s P-90. Fuck, _fuck_.

“Sheppard,” Ronon snarled, because Rodney had gone still and white and quiet tucked there in Ronon's coat, and John’s shaking fingers slid through the blood to the pulse point on his small neck. When he didn’t find it he grabbed Rodney’s upper arm, heart in his throat, and _felt_ until he could make out the sluggish blip of Rodney’s pulse, pumping, pumping despite everything. 

“Teyla!” John snarled, and heard her answer -- though what she said got swallowed in the roar of P-90 fire and the slower _plit-plit-plit_ of Genii weapons.

“ _Colonel, I will provide cover fire!_ ”, Teyla repeated, and from far to John’s left he heard the deafening bullets tearing through the tree bark. There were cries, closer than John cared to admit, but he was too busy getting up on legs that didn’t want to work, Ronon’s grip on his upper arm as hard as John’s had been on Rodney’s. 

Ronon tore up fifteen yards in seconds. John wasn’t nearly as fast, and it was Ronon who hauled him through into the Jumper, so hard he slammed into Teyla, then the pilot’s chair, with a terrible bang. 

And then _Rodney_ , and blood everywhere, and Genii outside crashing against the hull of the Jumper, shooting at it despite the shield, and Ronon, murmuring low, “He isn’t breathing,” and oh God, oh shit. Teyla dropped to her knees, her voice quiet and sure and shaking, and John didn’t have to look back to know they’d started CPR. 

John’s voice was a complete counterpart to his insides, his hands calm as they started the Jumper up as fast as he could, dialing the ’gate and lifting off at the same time. The sudden and intense desire to drop a few drones on the planet was almost more than he could bear, intergalactic incident or not. The only thing that kept his hand was Ronon, big and silent and pale as a ghost, Teyla gently pumping Rodney's chest with two fingers like John had taught her, and the blood pooling around Rodney, thick and dark and red. “Atlantis, this is Sheppard -- I have a medical emergency, it’s Rodney and it’s bad.”

_“Understood, Jumper 3. Come on through.”_

And John held on. He held on, even as he heard Teyla’s voice, calm and deep, counting through her CPR. Held on until he felt the Jumper connect with the Gate and take over, and then he hit the floor beside them and _Rodney_ , whose lips were blue and whose belly, soft and round, rose and fall with the almost gentle breaths Teyla was giving him. He bled from the nose, ears, eyes and mouth; from his belly button and his penis and around, spreading under his hips. 

The back hatch came down and Carter was there, and Keller, and half the medical team, but they didn’t come in: they just stood there, staring, and John got a taste of what Rodney must have felt every day, because no way were such _fucking idiots breathing his air._

And then suddenly there were more people in the Jumper than it had been meant to handle. Keller peeled John’s fingers away from Rodney’s arm, yelling for supplies and took over compressions while asking a million questions John couldn’t answer. Her small hands threaded tubing down Rodney’s throat, his tiny mouth smeared red. There were barked orders, and a backboard slipped under the baby, and Beckett bellowing for his team to prep a surgical suite. And then they were gone, Rodney so small on that huge gurney as it clattered as fast as they could go towards the infirmary, and everything went fuzzy and white around the edges. 

The puddle jumper didn’t tick like a car that had been shut off; it hummed softly, already drawing power from the conduit strips on the floor. For a second, just one second, after the doors had closed behind Beckett and his booming voice faded into nothingness, John could hear the jumper, all but feel her murmuring to Atlantis, regal and quiet.

“John?” Carter stepped tentatively up towards them over gauze and Ronon’s ruined coat and Teyla, her face pressed to one knee. 

“Rodney was right,” John said, he was _not_ hysterical, even if the waver of his voice said otherwise. “He was right the whole fucking time.”

“John,” Carter said more gently. “You’re hurt.”

He was, John knew he was, the fire in his back had turned into a blaze, skittering up his nerves and down, the tackiness of blood tickling the part of his back where his shirt had ridden up. There was white cotton in his eyes, and bees buzzing in his ears, like a hot summer in Georgia, his face pressed to the soft of his mother’s dress.

Still. It was important Carter understand, vitally important. Urgency made him talk through a thick tongue, through the mask suddenly pressing against his face, and around the hands touching him. 

“It’s my fault.”

He closed his eyes.


	6. Sherlock Genderswitch - Short Fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's trembling, which is understandable considering not an hour ago they'd been systematically blown up, but still, Sherlock isn't prepared for the way that makes him feel, out of control and useless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Genderswitch BBC Sherlock. Yeah, IDK either.

She's trembling, which is understandable considering not an hour ago they'd been systematically blown up, but still, Sherlock isn't prepared for the way that makes him feel, out of control and useless. She smells of sweat and chlorine, and her makeup, the little of it she used on the day to day, has washed away completely. 

There's but a single light on in Baker Street, the one she must have left on over the stove. She always said she hated coming back to a dark house, and in this instance Sherlock is grateful. He sits her at the kitchen table, doesn't so much as bother answering when she makes her token protest, because he's already unraveling her clothing to get to the blood underneath.

"Sherlock," she says. "Sherlock. It's just a flesh wound," and that she's arguing with him makes him all the more anxious to get under her shirt. If he were in the frame of mind to realize it, he thinks she'd be amused. As it is rivulets of pink are running with the rainwater down her skin and Sherlock has had enough.

The laceration travels up her chest, where the knife had sliced through the cotton of her blouse. Her brassier, as sensible as she, is equally as ruined, and he reaches behind her to unhook and unclasp it to look at the damage.

The knife wound travels up her left side, deepest alongside her chest and bleeding profusely. He pulls his handkerchief out of his pocket, presses it against the wound in spite of her low cry of pain. “Hold it there,” he instructs, stands quickly to shed his coat, to fetch the first aid kit from the lav, the one she’d put together once it became obvious that being in his company would require it. When he returns he’s momentarily taken aback, stands frozen at the door to the kitchen. He’s used to seeing Jo in her practical button-downs, her brown coat, her flat military-styled shoes. Half the time he forgets she’s a woman at all.

He can’t forget, right at this moment.

She peers up at him, frowns. “If we’re going to do this here, you might as well turn the heat on before I freeze my arse off.”

“You should be at hospital,” he hears himself say, but for once in his life he can’t quite seem to snap his attention back to the matter at hand. Perhaps because she is so obviously cold, as the state of her areoles would indicate, wrinkled and tight around her protruding nipples. 

“Sherlock,” she says again, almost gently, almost _amused_ , but her face is at odds with her words, serious and straight. There’s blood running down her chest from where its soaked through the kerchief, and Sherlock leaps into action.

He is not unused to patching himself up, or patching up Jo for that matter, and despite the bleeding this isn’t more serious than what they’ve dealt with before. Irrigating the wound sends her into a spasm of shivering, and he fetches the throw from her chair, spreads it over her shoulders and down her uninjured side. She buries her face in it, pale. “It’s alright, I’m fine,” she says, as he leans in close to check that the wound is clean. 

“You’re always fine,” he says, sending goose pimples across her skin. “I’ve turned the heat on,” he assures her, glancing up. Her cheeks are pink, her eyes closed. “It should warm up in a minute.”

“Good, that’s good,” she says, looking up at the ceiling as Sherlock moves her arm up at the elbow and leans in close to peer at the wound. “Stitches needed?”

“Not as such. I think he was taken in by that bulky monstrosity you call a coat – it’s fairly shallow, for a gaping chest wound.” 

“Well then,” she says, voice even, “use the medical glue and tape it up.”

He does as she instructs, step by step, ignoring her breasts, one half hidden by the blanket, the other next to his cheek. She’s embarrassed, her body tells him – from the blush that is darkening her cheeks to the way she can’t seem to stop squirming whenever Sherlock is fetching more gauze and isn’t directly tending to her wound. It’s ridiculous -- _she_ is ridiculous – and finally he says, “You needn’t feel self conscious.”

Her laugh is breathy and utterly humiliated. “Sherlock, I’ve got my breast in your face.”

“Well, technically I’ve got my face by your breast,” he says offhand, carefully sticking another piece of tape to her skin. “A shot of penicillin?”

“Second drawer.” She nudges her chin to the kit, and just as she said there are needles and small bottles in the second drawer. 

She lowers her arm finally, testing the muscle and the tension in the bandage, but Sherlock is far too good at his trade and her face relaxes somewhat. She nudges the blanket up on her naked shoulder, brings it around to cover her chest, and stands to unbutton her trousers, bare the fleshy round of her hip for the needle.

She doesn’t make a sound as it goes in, and Sherlock carefully swipes the skin clean when it’s done, applies a small plaster.

There isn’t much that can bring her to the limit of her patience, but this, he thinks, is it. Her face is lined with exhaustion, her joints trembling with it, and something old and worn and written with female pain is on her face. 

He stops her before she can leave the room, a hand on her blanket covered wrist. “Who was it?”

“I’m sorry?”

Sherlock makes a sound in his throat – always just a step behind, Jo. He can’t quite get worked up about it today, though, not when she’s trying to hide so much. “The man who told you that you weren’t attractive.”

He’s hit a nerve, he can tell from the tightening of her features. Navigating a woman’s heart is like walking through a minefield, even sensible Jo’s. “Before you joined the army. University, then, young enough to still be impressionable – an older man, someone whose opinion you would have taken to heart.” He tilts his head, studying her, the tension in her small frame. “Am I close?”

It’s the wrong thing to say, he sees immediately – the tension snaps and she makes to leave in a way that says the matter is closed and it isn’t to be brought up again.

Normally, he’d let her. Normally, he wouldn’t dare hedge into this emotional territory in which he has no experience, but it seems tonight is a night for new experiences, and more than that he can’t let her go to bed with whatever thoughts are scurrying around her brain.

“You loved him. And when the inevitable breakup came – for it was inevitable, he wasn’t nearly as good a person as you, and what’s worse used you to bolster his own academics – he told you that you were unattractive. That your breasts were unattractive.”

Jo goes taut like a bow string and Sherlock knows he’s hit it, right on the money. He stares up into her eyes, watches as she relives the experience. Old pain. Old hurt.

Sherlock says, “I have been told on many occasions, some which I will remind were by you, that I am honest to the point of brutality.”

She studies him in that peculiar, intense way she sometimes had, as if he were a particularly engaging puzzle, searching his face, his eyes. Whatever she sees there gives her answer enough.

She doesn’t tell him the story behind it, for Sherlock knows there is a story – but she opens the blanket again, and invites Sherlock to look.

He nudges her until she turns her torso the smallest bit into the light from the stove. “Slender. Muscles under the small amount of fat you’ve once again accumulated since your return from Afghanistan. You have an inclination towards weight gain in your hips, which at the moment you need, as I can see your bones quite clearly. I’ll have to remember to keep feeding you up.”

Jo snorts, shakes her head ruefully. “I thought that was a job for girlfriends.”

“And flatmates,” Sherlock amends absently. “You have well proportioned shoulders, clear, unmarked skin, aside from the bullet wound, of course, which has left a puckered scar, worse in back than in front. Strong arms and forearms – small hands.” They were dainty but he’d never tell her, not if he wanted to keep her good opinion of him. “A slender waist, ribs less prominent now that I have taken to feeding you as aforementioned.” He turns his eyes up, studies her. He can see the blush working its way up her neck. Never has he felt so out of his depth. “Your breasts are small but hold with the rest of your aesthetics -- larger breasts would throw off your proportions. The areoles are darker than the skin around it, and your nipples are high and sensitive to the cold. Judging by the color, practical cut and style of your brassieres, you don’t want any attention given to them, a holdover from your time in the military and your insistence that your men ignore your gender as much as possible.” 

It gets a laugh out of her, and some of the startled, deer-in-headlights feelings Sherlock had been struggling against dissipate. He looks up at her, sees her cheeks pink, her expression soft. Carefully, she wraps the blanket back over her chest and Sherlock can’t help but think that an opportunity had just passed him by that might not resurface for a long time, if ever again. 

He says, as she turns away, “The man who told you that you had no charms in which to attract a member of the opposite sex was quite plainly off his rocker. Yours is not a stunning beauty, but you are beautiful, Joan, in your way.”

She smiles, he can tell by the way her cheeks move, and as she walks away Sherlock is left with the altogether peculiar feeling that he just did something important.


	7. NCIS: Tony/Tim - Short Fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing is, Abby had no idea, and that doesn't gel with her world view.

The thing is, Abby had no idea, and that doesn't gel with her world view. 

Abby is a scientist, and she is trained, classically and otherwise, to notice things: the tiniest fragments of evidence on otherwise innocuous objects, the slightest shifts in chemical balances, the smallest clues on the smallest objects. Abby is a woman who can tell the differences between identical bullets, who can pick up clues in a crime scene others miss. 

They probably don't know she can see them, is the thing -- the only explanation, in fact, for people who'd done their utmost to remain secret for so long. They'd probably figured she wouldn't venture into the furthest-most supply room on the forensic floor anytime soon, and they would have been right, if the current case hadn't called for ten-year-old forensic data to be reconstructed. That's why she and Burt were here, in the dark, looking for ancient, outdated doodads and staring out of a slightly grungy government building window at something she never, ever thought she'd see.

Tony. And Timmy. Hiding in the little back-corner alcove of the building, where the emergency staircase wound up the back of the building. Hiding together under the little dip of an awning, _doing_ things. Tony's hands on Tim's cheeks, rain glistening between his fingers and along his jacket sleeves, along those pretty Italian eyelashes of his. His thumbs on Tim's jaw, his chin, his throat, and Timmy, _Timmy_ , all arched up against Tony's mouth, against Tony's chest, holding their cups of coffee like a man about to drown. 

They're kissing, desperate and beautiful in the rain, like something out of a movie. Tony smiles around the kiss and it's maybe the most honest smile she's ever seen him give, like this Tony and her Tony are totally different Tony's, like this one is the real one. Then it hits her, and her belly gets all fluttery, because... because _Tim_ is his private life. Tim and Tony have a private life, in which they hug and kiss and do other, sexy things her brain won't let her think about, at least while she's at work.

"Well okay then," Abby says. She gives Burt a hard look. "No telling, okay? This is private stuff. Which should be kept private. Privately. No matter how hot it is."

He farts, and she nods smartly, and takes special care in locking the supply room door behind her when she leaves.

 

(Later, she only giggles twice when Tony and Tim come in to ask for an update, pink and damp and flushed. She's only human here, people.)


	8. Merlin/Arthur - Short fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spring's hold on Camelot had finally waned, and the days were getting longer, the heat heavier.

Spring's hold on Camelot had finally waned, and the days were getting longer, the heat heavier. Arthur had left the castle that morning with the excuse of a hunt, when in fact he'd just wanted a day to lie in the sweet smelling grass along the hilltop glade as he hadn't done since he was a boy, small and barefoot and wild. He dug his toes into the dirt, listened to the insects in the grass and the birds in the trees, and to Merlin and the pup they'd brought with them, the runt of her litter and small yet, despite Merlin's care. 

It was childhood again, caught in that dreamy place between waking and sleep. The pup yipped with delight and Merlin laughed, and for a moment it was like being seven years old again, lying in this same glade and listening to summer pass him by.

He opened his eyes, still sleepy and warm with sunlight, and watched Merlin turn a blade of grass into a small leather ball. Watched him throw it for the pup, joy all over his face when the pup chased it, so tiny she got lost in the grass. Watched Merlin smile and set his chin on his knee, shift tugging at his neck to expose his back, his shoulder. His eyes were fey-like, as golden as the wheat in the distance, and the most beautiful thing Arthur had ever seen. He mulled that over for a moment, listened to the dog barking full of joy down the hill, listened to the birds sing overhead, and to the grass rustling gently with the wind. 

“No idea how you’ve managed to live this long being such a bloody idiot. You've all the survival instincts of a gnat,” Arthur finally murmured, sleepily. Merlin froze, still as the heavy, summer-bright sky, just as the pup raced back without her ball. Probably turned back into grass right after Merlin threw it. He would be that type of sorcerer – that is, a miserably incompetent one. “Well?” Arthur asked, closing his eyes again, running his hand over Merlin's sun-warmed back. “Make her another one already.”

He felt Merlin's eyes on him, felt the tension in Merlin's muscles. After an eternity, Merlin relaxed against his hand and whispered, “ _Gathen limitha._ ”


	9. Merlin/Arthur - Short fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time they kiss it's a kiss between friends.

The first time they kiss it's a kiss between friends. Arthur has had too much mead, Merlin has taken too many sips out of the wine, and the great hall is filled with anxious, intoxicating merriment that comes after a hard, cold winter. Arthur doesn't often shed himself of his title, but when he does he does it fully. It's easy kissing Merlin, brotherhood and comfort and warmth between them, drunk on joy and relief of another season gone by. The hot months are ahead -- the earth does not yet yield it's fruitful bounty, the cry of newborn calves does not yet fill the air, and the night is still so cold it nips at the face and fingers and toes -- but the worst is behind them, and Arthur can let himself go, can let himself feel the blood-deep hum of happiness suffusing his people. 

He kisses Merlin, and he tastes of summer.

The second time they kiss is far less innocent. This time it is not a kiss between friends, but neither is it a kiss between lovers. It’s something different, something unnamed and incapable of being categorized, because the second time they kiss Merlin has lost control of his magic and the very world is in chaos.

He feels first the sharp bite of betrayal, the slow burn of dismay, the dropping, aching emptiness of sorrow, but it is all of it background noise to the destruction around him. Merlin is screaming, one long, shrill, inhuman sound, a sound of animal agony that stabs at Arthur’s belly, makes him feel fear for the first time in as long as he can remember. The sorcerer Merlin is fighting – a man of their court, a lord of a plentiful fief and father of three children that will now be burned at the stake – the sorcerer is fighting Merlin as Arthur has met men in the field, out for blood and with the spirit of war in his blood. 

Merlin fights. He fights like Arthur has never seen him fight, raining hell-fire down on the man who would dare make an attempt on Arthur’s life, on the life of Arthur’s father, on the lives of the men and women who fill the banquet hall. He fights and he bleeds from every hole in his face, a mask of blood twisting such comfortable, familiar features into the face of a man Arthur has never met.

How long it goes on, he doesn’t know, and comes back to himself only when it ends. His ears are ringing, and the floor under his cheek is cold as ice, and his limbs feel heavy, as if the magic that has swirled through the hall for the countless eons since Sir Hereck raised his hand and shouted magic at him has sapped the energy from his bones.

Merlin alone stands, all knobby elbows and knees, blood staining his front all the way down to his belt. Through the red on his face he is white, and when he looks at Arthur, his eyes are terrible – golden, and filled with such power, and such deep sadness, that Arthur can hardly stand to look at him.

The second time they kiss is far less innocent, because in that kiss, cold between the bars of Merlin’s cell, is the promise of something greater for himself and for his people, and the promise that it would be Merlin at his side for it and none other.

The third time they kiss spring has warmed Camelot after a freezing winter. The weight of his crown is still new, as is the roughness of man’s first beard on his cheek, and he wears both with grace and solemnity. His people are restless with excitement at the youthfulness of their new sovereign. Arthur, too, feels a new sense of freedom he has never experienced, and as soon as winter breaks Arthur orders a grand festival, stretching into every corner of his kingdom. It is a celebration with many meanings to many people – a release of tyranny, a reminder of the bounty of Camelot, the welcoming of a new king. 

To Arthur, though, it is something entirely different. He waits, waits until the sun is going down on the third day of celebrations, the fourth, the fifth, as men from every corner of the kingdom come to joust and make merriment, as the castle is filled with lords and ladies of Arthur’s vassal lands.

He waits until he cannot wait even one moment longer, and that’s when he feels a warm presence at his elbow, that’s when he smells the familiar lye soap, hears the well-loved voice in his ear, “You could have just called out for me. I am magic, you know.”

Everything suddenly slots perfectly together, perfectly in place. All Arthur can see is the warm, amused blue of Merlin’s eyes. “Maybe I’m just throwing a party.”

“And that’s why you’ve got peasants in outlying villages celebrating the Eve of Emrys,” Merlin says, obnoxious as ever and smirking in that way that begs Arthur to smack him upside the head. He is saved only by Morgana’s cry of joy, Guinevere’s arms thrown around his neck.

Their third kiss comes later, much, much later, after the castle has settled down to sleep and he can finally have a moment for himself. The balustrade of the northern-most tower is rough under his hands, cold stone biting into the tender heel of his palms, but it is real, it is happening, and he can breathe. He smells cooking fires, and cool morning dew, and the sweet scent of wild grass and wheat, and even the bitter bite of the apples in the orchards, crisp and ready to be picked and eaten. 

Merlin says, eyes turned into the distance, “I think maybe I’ve loved you my entire life.”

The stinging sadness of wasted time burns in his throat, along the edges of the scars Arthur carries on his back for guaranteeing that time. “You’ve only known me for five summers, you idiot.”

After a moment, Merlin snorts, though his face is older and it hardly looks as foolish as it once did. “Prat. Don’t you know that this is the part where you say “please stay, Merlin”?”

Arthur stops himself from a glib answer in kind, because behind the amusement in Merlin’s eyes is vulnerability, sharp and ill-hidden. He takes Merlin’s hand, cups his cheek. “Please stay,” he says, and has no choice but to kiss him, there atop his castle with the entire world at his feet.


	10. Merlin/Arthur - Short Fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing is, Merlin doesn’t remember the ride back to the castle at all.

The thing is, Merlin doesn’t remember the ride back to the castle at all. In fact, if it weren’t for the damning evidence of half an arrow stuck inside him, he wouldn’t very well have believed he’d been wounded at all. He doesn’t remember being carried on Arthur’s horse either, though later he’s assured by Petr, Sir Erec’s squire, that the prince had held him tightly to his chest all the way back to the castle, uncaring of the blood that had run over his arms and down the horse’s neck. Petr hadn’t bothered to hide his awe of this. Merlin was, after all, just a servant. 

What Merlin does remember are the knights carrying him, silent agony like boiling oil in his veins, and Sir Bedivere’s voice a quiet, comforting murmur in his ear. He thinks maybe he loses himself for a while, because when he opens his eyes the knights are stretching him out on a bed. Too late does he recognize the bed drapes, knows that if he lives through this he’s going to spend weeks washing blood out of Arthur’s sheets, and maybe that part comes out because Arthur says, “Merlin, you idiot,” and he’s _furious_. Merlin figures he would be too, if his servant had accidentally stepped in front of an arrow meant for a buck and then proceeded to bleed all over his bed. 

Gaius comes as he always does, pinched worry in the lines of his wrinkled face, and Merlin says, “It’s okay.” Gaius laughs, high and alarmingly alarmed, and says, “Oh, is that the opinion of a professional?” and does something awful to Merlin’s belly, makes Merlin open his mouth and find his scream and lose the world, all in one go.

Later, when Merlin opens his eyes again, evening is slowly rolling across the sky, the setting sun casting gold light into the room. He doesn’t hurt; in fact, he seems to be washed through with a dull, hazy glow, even though his guts distantly feel like they’ve been scooped out with a spoon. “Oh,” he whispers to the heavy red canopy above.

“So you’re awake then,” comes a voice from his left, and Arthur pops into his field of vision, scattered blond hair and frowning blue eyes. “Took you long enough.”

Merlin doesn’t dare shift a single muscle for fear his body will come apart at the seams. Instead, he settles for blinking owlishly at Arthur. “Scooped out with a spoon,” he adds.

“Right, still delirious, no surprise there. I’ll bet you’re playacting to get out of doing the end-of-week chores. Well, tough on you, the carpets aren’t going to beat themselves,” Arthur says, all business, which is strange because he’s otherwise gentle with a warm, wet rag across Merlin’s sensitive skin. “Gave Gaius quite the scare – what could have come over you to step in front of that arrow? Have you got a death wish? If so please let me know, as I prefer my manservant alive and in one piece, and not tossing himself willy-nilly in front of dinner.”

Arthur does something around his navel and Merlin groans, a short, uncomfortable wave of _something_ working its way around the medicine in his body. “Ow,” he chokes out, and cracks an eye open to glare weakly up at his prince, who himself is wincing. “You’ve hams for hands.”

“I’m the one tending to your pathetic little scratch, show some respect,” Arthur says, all wounded dignity, but he uses the edge of the rag to wash the sticky skin below Merlin’s navel with more care.

Merlin is fairly sure that underneath the potions it hurts worse than anything, worse than when he broke his arm as a boy, worse than using magic for the first time, but for now, Arthur’s easy touch and the soft breeze rustling the bed drapes comfort him, lull him back into the hazy glow he’d woken up to. “Alright?” he asks.

Arthur doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. “You almost bled to death,” he says, and Merlin appreciates the honesty, because really, the arrow had been meant for a buck. Maybe he trembles a little, because Arthur adds, “Easy, you’re alright now,” and Merlin believes him, even though Arthur looks peaked like he does when he’s worried, even though he's pouring a finger of Gaius' famous pain killer and sliding his arm under Merlin's head to support him as he drinks. It's a good thing, too; Merlin's bones feel like jelly in his skin, and he's so weak he can hardly raise a hand, let alone his head. 

After, with the ugly burn of it still clinging to the insides of his mouth, Arthur lays him back down, carefully tucks the edge of his blankets up over Merlin’s chest. Almost immediately the dull pain that had steadily grown sharper recedes again, and Merlin feels weightless, almost as if he's above the room floating about the edges of the room which are always full of cobwebs. He giggles, and hears Arthur say something, and says, "I nev' mast'red flyin'."

"Flying?"

"Yes. Y'know..." he tracks his eyes over the canopy ceiling. "Propa wiz'rd should fly. Comes with'a ter..terri...terra--"

"Territory?" he hears Arthur asks, and feels his hand on his forehead, and it's dark there under Arthur's palm. "Of course it is," Arthur adds, and there's a smile in his voice. "Wizards should fly on mops and witches on broomsticks, and errant manservants liable to get themselves killed should shut up and go to sleep."

Sleep sounds like a fantastic idea. Merlin always did think Arthur was rather brilliant.


	11. SGA fic: John's Earful - Short Fic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's earful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the one and only scene I ever wrote for this fic -- it was going to be long and involved, instead it's tiny and hilarious.

"Rodney–"

"Oh, don't you 'Rodney' me, you son of a bitch," Rodney snapped. "You, you with your libidinous libido and your three pounds of hair and your smirky, slutty mouth. You need to check your dick at the 'Gate, because it seems every time we step through it you once again expose it to the dangers of intergalactic penis disease. My God, did no one ever show you pictures?!"

"Rodney, look, it isn't my fault."

"It never is! Did you fall down and– whoops! It slipped in?! No. Don't talk to me. You're an intergalactic gigolo, and I don't like you anymore. All those times. All those times I blamed those women for being tramps, and it was always you, with your big green eyes and your rakish hair and your uncontrollable penis!"

John felt a flush crawling onto his cheeks. "That's enough talk about my penis, okay?"

"No, it's not. It keeps getting us into trouble! I move to make it the fifth member of the team. We could name it Bitch Magnet. Or... Gerald, the Product of an Overactive Gland."

"Look, she needed my genes! They're healthy genes, you know."

"They're the genes of the intergalactic gigolo."

"They're the genes of the Ancients."

"Wipe the smirk off your face, or I'm going to blacken your other eye."

"You didn't blacken it so much as yellow it."

"You'll have a raccoon eye come morning, with my name written all over it. Be glad I was trapped so long my muscles began to cramp, cause I was going to kick your skinny ass. I can barely move as it is," Rodney snapped.

Elizabeth cleared her throat lightly from the front of the briefing room, and ten pairs of eyes met hers. "Ah... let's start at the beginning, shall we?"

"Colonel Space Slut," Rodney muttered, and crossed his arms.


	12. Pieces from Words May Fail (The Body Remains)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An assortment of cut scenes from Words May Fail (The Body Remains).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cut scenes from my Clint/Coulson vehicle for angst and Shield Husbands. I worked on Words May Fail on and off for six straight months, and a lot of extra was cut. Here it is, for the first time -- including an alternate ending. My notes are in parentheses.

(I cut this out because the angst was just too much, even for me. Still, this is my head canon -- some of you caught on right away that Charlie was sick, and you were absolutely right.)

They call from the prison, that second week, to tell him that Charlie died from his cancer. They send one of their grief counselors to him with Charlie’s ashes, and when she asks if he’s okay, Clint doesn’t know how to explain that he isn’t sad, not really, not in the way she expects. Charlie had been broken for a long time, and he’d made peace in prison. He’d helped people, which was what he’d always wanted, because Charlie had always loved too much, too hard, too big, even at the expense of himself.

The grief counselor tells him Charlie had passed with his friends nearby, but Clint knows that isn’t true. Their kind were born in the dark and died in the dark, and Clint knows he’d died alone, ravaged from the cancer, but fighting, fighting until he could see Clint one last time. Fighting until he knew the kids he watched out for would be alright. 

That’s the first night they eat together, and Clint knows it isn’t a coincidence. It’s a little awkward because none of them have really been in the communal space, not really. The fridge doesn’t have the beer Bruce likes, and there’s no salad dressing, and there isn’t a goddamned napkin anywhere, but – but it’s okay, once there’s wine, once the food gets there, and Clint doesn’t want to know how much it fucking cost, he just doesn’t, because he’s pretty sure _Le Bernardin_ doesn’t deliver.

It’s nice. A lot of talking, and laughing, and something loosening in Bruce’s shoulders for the first time, and there are only a handful of awkward silences. Thor only bursts into heroic and manly tears once, and Tony gets Steve to laugh out-loud, though he won’t say why, and Natasha actually smiles, tiny curve in the corner of her mouth she’ll never admit to.

 

.

(Here's some extra stuff with Lady Matilda.)

Lady Matilda hadn’t been the only one who played the cello. There’d been a man, her beau. Tiboldt. He was a good man, Russian like Tasha, with a thick, burly beard and warm brown eyes. He did a show with a white tiger named Manse. Sometimes he even let Clint pet it, if Manse was in a good mood. 

The nights Lady Matilda would give him lessons, Tiboldt would light a warm fire in her small hearth and carve small figurines. They were beautiful women with flowing skirts and bowing men, dancing the _Kalinka_. He was a famous dancer in his day, Tiboldt; as a young man he’d been in a Ukrainian dance troop. He would listen to Clint make the cello sing and his big, deep voice would sing along, consonants and vowels flowing like water, and the faster he sang the faster Clint’s fingers went, until the other carnies came to see what the commotion was. Peter would usually get his violin, on those nights, and Jack would play his guitar, and it didn’t matter that the music didn’t match quite right, because they’d make Lady Matilda’s trailer rock until Carson came and yelled at them for all the racket. On those nights, long after everyone had gone to bed, and Lady Matilda was on her couch and Clint was curled up beside her, Tiboldt would make the cello weep like Clint didn’t think it could do.

Tiboldt died in Phoenix of a heart attack, right before Clint’s fourteenth birthday. There wasn’t music after that, but Clint would never forget what it felt like to have Lady Matilda so close, laughing into his hair, or how big Tiboldt smiled with Clint got just the right note to play. 

 

.

(Shameless masturbation porn. You have been warned. Falls someplace in the very first chapter of Words May Fail, early on before Clint and Phil get all mushy in the feelings department.)

 

“What are you really afraid of?”

“He’s going to want more,” Clint blurts. “That’s the way it works, I’ve watched porn dammit. It’s all fun and games until asses get involved.”

“That’s fun,” she says, eyebrow arched. 

“Why Natasha-May, I never,” Clint says, and she smirks at him. “Seriously? You? Jesus, that’s hot.”

She pinches his cheek like she does sometimes when she thinks he’s being particularly adorable. “Give it a try. It isn’t rocket science.”

Which is exactly how he finds himself standing in his bathroom later that night, hair wet and towel slung low over his hips, holding the small plastic jar of petroleum jelly he uses on his nose in cold weather.

He has no idea how to do this. Alright, no, he’s been with women, he even fucked a girl in the ass once. He does know how to do this. He just doesn’t know if he can do this, from the other end. 

He glances up at his reflection, half-naked, holding Vaseline, with a tent under his towel. “Look at the choices you’ve made, Clinton,” he mutters, and sticks out his tongue at himself.

He kneels on his bed, wracked with indecision. Living on base really sucked, because he’s sure the internet has a million websites on How To Finger Yourself Without Causing Yourself Lasting Damage, Moron. He throws some pillows against the headboard, buries himself in them all cozy-like, and gives his cock a warm stroke, then another, sending tingles up into his shoulders and neck and nipples. The first flush of arousal is always the most fun; it’s like his whole body wakes up and remembers that, for all the abuse he heaps on it, he also knows how to enjoy himself. It’s… nice, and comforting, and he continues like that for a while, until the pleasure starts to build and things start getting a little rougher. He makes himself stop after getting warmed up, slowing down until his cock is sitting high and hot and hard on his stomach.

“Okay,” he mutters, squirming down a little. He’s still sitting, but now he can lift his legs and – just the act of that, of pulling his knees up and spreading his legs, has a shudder crawling down his spine and curling around his bones. His cock twitches, smears a spurt of precome under his navel, and he can’t remember the last time that happened. He remembers the way Phil looked between his le –

He stops himself from going down that path. If he does, if he tries, he’s going to lose control of himself. 

The little jar of Vaseline is on the bedside table. He has a moment of indecision, wonders if this is the right call, if he’s setting himself up for all kinds of heartbreak by even trying. No other man has ever caught his eye, not like this. What if he isn’t bisexual at all?

“Then all you’ve done is finger yourself,” Clint says out loud, trying to ignore how ragged he sounds.

He pushes his fingers into the Vaseline. 

The first touch on his hole is that odd kind of familiar he finds he doesn’t like much. He’s spent most of his time at SHIELD with doctors touching him all over, and this feels weird, clinical, even without the rubber gloves. Granted, Doc always just went for it, if he was ready or not. This feels – he strokes softly, lightly, cataloging each sensation. It isn’t awful. In fact, it’s not awful enough that he slowly presses in.

He meets resistance right away, and squirms out of the sitting position, rolling onto his back, then flipping around. He braces his feet against the headboard and shoves a pillow under his hips, and that helps, that helps a lot actually. Clint tugs lightly on his cock, presses his finger in again. There’s tightness, fullness, _strangeness_ , but as he becomes accustomed to it the strange feeling starts to go away. He strokes his finger in and out slowly, timing it to his hand on his cock and his breathing. 

His world isn’t rocked, but Clint decides it isn’t too bad – it’s kind of nice, even, and after a while he thinks he’s ready for more. He pulls his finger free and then pushes in, slowly, with two.

The stretch is bigger. The stretch hurts. The stretch feels _incredible._

He shudders and presses all the way in, slowly twisting his fingers around the head of his cock as he does so. He tries to remember what Doc always does, that little frisson Clint always gets and it’s dirty-wrong- _awful_ except when he curls his fingers and nearly sees Jesus.

The sound that comes out of him is a broken gurgle, and he immediately curls his fingers again. Too much – too much sensation, borders on pain – and he pulls back, stretching his fingers apart and then pushing gently, gently back in. “Holy shit,” he gasps, and does it again, and again, and suddenly his hand is flying on his dick and he’s rubbing his prostate on each thrust and he’s curled up like a pill bug, mewling into the blankets.

The memory rolls over him in a wave – naked bodies, hard cocks, strong fingers and flashing blue eyes. Fighting for control, pushing and shoving and _touching_. Need and heat and spreading his legs wide open, letting Phil crawl between them as neatly as he’s crawled into Clint’s heart. 

When he comes, the pleasure radiates from his cock, from the place his fingers are buried. It flashes outward like a bomb and he feels his body spasm, his balls draw up, and his orgasm crash over him like a fucking tsunami. From one second to the next it’s too much, it hurts. He pulls his fingers out immediately, cupping the head of his dick as it pulses for what feels like forever.

When he calms down he rolls onto his back, gasping, covered in come clear up to the hollow of his neck. He thinks about Sarah, squealing for a solid twenty minutes before coming so hard she passed out, and laughs until he cries.

 

.

(Alternate ending. This was one of the first things I wrote in the fic, because I fail at writing in a linear fashion. In the end it didn't work for the emotion I was going for, but I still liked it enough to keep it.)

From somewhere behind them, Stark asks, “What do you mean, ‘tried’?”

Clint clenches his eyes shut. “Phil’s body belongs to SHIELD. He died by an unknown weapon,” he says, feels its weight in his hands, feels the force of it pushing through Phil’s chest. “SHIELD agents belong to the government, even when we die. That’s why we’re called assets.” 

Stark’s face does something incredible – the polite confusion washes away and his expression is suddenly disbelieving, like he can’t comprehend what he just heard. It cycles through understanding, then shock, then horror, and he looks back at Bruce as if Doc has all the answers. “No. No way. Right?”

“No,” Bruce echoes, wary. “Though, to be frank, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Alright. Alright, Jesus, this is some middle-ages, Machiavellian shit, this is the plot to a bad soap opera. We’re calling the first official Avengers meeting right now, Jarvis, get everyone up here,” Stark says, scraping his fingers through his hair until it stands on end.

Stark wipes his hands on a rag, and Bruce gives Clint the respect of pretending he isn’t helping him in. Clint’s knees are fucking gelatin; he feels hollow, like all his insides were scooped out. Stark taps at is phone and the window overlooking Manhattan is suddenly a computer hologram. “Cross reference every agent at SHIELD with New York General, the Medical wing of SHIELD, and the wounded list after the battle with the Chitauri.”

_“May I ask what you’re searching for, sir?”_

“You know exactly what I’m searching for. Is SOPHIE not cooperating?”

_“I cannot access the current agent roster at this time.”_

The elevator opens behind them and Steve actually _leaps_ out wearing sweats and his shield. Natasha is right behind him, her hair in a towel and a dagger in her hand. “What’s going on?” she demands, only to be waved at irritably by Stark. “Override 027255-GPWFMD-5EGW44QPT,” Tony raps out, pacing the length of the sitting room. “Jesus Christ, I should have done this weeks ago. I’m sorry Clint.”

“It’s okay,” Clint says, though he has no idea if it is, or even what the fuck Tony is talking about. “What are you trying to do?”

“You said it yourself. SHIELD owns you kids.”

_“Current Agent list is twelve thousand, six hundred and sixty two.”_

“SHIELD is a government agency, first,” Tony continues. “Government agencies like to file things in triplicate, copies of copies of copies, a chain effect that’s more charming than effective, to be honest, especially when a rich asshole with far too much time on his hands installs a backdoor into their network and automatically archives the whole shebang.” He looks far from happy about it. “Jarvis, bring up Coulson’s records.”

Suddenly Phil is right there on the computer screen, looking out from his file photo. He looks younger, has more hair, but the same smiling eyes are looking down at him. It twists in Clint’s guts, makes him want to puke, but Bruce's hand is there on his shoulder, calming him. “What are you doing?”

“Proving that Fury is a lying liar who lies, _king_ of liars, the man really deserves a reward,” Tony tells him, hands in his hair again. “Phil Coulson’s current status?”

_“Agent Coulson’s status is marked as Deceased on May 4, 2012. Agent Coulson’s status is marked as Deceased on May 6, 2012. Agent Coulson’s status is marked as Unknown on May 7, 2012.”_

The world fall out from under Clint’s feet. “What?” he asks, because he doesn’t get it, he isn’t a brain child like these people, _he doesn’t understand what the fuck he just heard._

Steve steps slowly forward, and for the first time since the battle with the Chitauri Clint sees Captain fucking America, all six and a half feet of him filled with righteous fury. “Can you track him?”

_“Of course, Captain Rogers,”_ Jarvis says, as if he’s offended anyone would ever think otherwise.

And then, to Clint’s horror, he’s looking at a video feed of Phil, sprawled against the wall of the room that contained Hulk’s cage, bleeding like it’s fucking Budapest all over again. The white linen of his dress shirt is wet with a red so dark is black. In his arms he’s holding one of R&D’s new toys.

He hears an animal make a low, horrible sound; Steve says, “ _Tony_ ,” and Natasha snarls like she’s going to beat his head in, but all Tony says is, “No, wait. _Look_.”

Clint can’t look anywhere else. It’s Fury, kneeling down into the pool of blood, and a Med team with a defibrillator. Clint watches them get Phil onto a gurney and run out the door, the screen flickering across different video feeds down the long halls. He watches them push Phil into Medical, already overflowing; watches as hours pass in seconds and Phil is in a recovery room, attached to what looks like every medical device known to mankind. 

“I hate these people,” Bruce murmurs, low, under his breath. His grip on Clint has never faltered, but his eyes have a distinct green tinge. “I’ve told you all that I hate these people, right?”

The screen flickers, and Jarvis says, _“Excuse me, sir. It appears that Agent Coulson’s video feed ends here. I have taken the liberty of cross-referencing the list of critically injured agents that were moved from the Hellicarrier, and have found an anomaly: there appears to be an agent with severe facial burns who was medevac’d into Pennsylvania. However, there were no severe facial burns reported by any of the physicians present for the battle aboard the Hellicarrier.”_

Tony is white to the lips. “Name?”

_“Agent Patrick Cole.”_

The world tips, goes hazy, and Clint hears himself say, “Oh, fuck,” head swimming, because of course, of _course_ – was Fury waiting for them to figure it out? “Oh, fuck.”

According to the time stamp weeks pass. Nurses and doctors come in and out, the respirator is removed, only to appear again after a second surgery. Fury is a constant, appearing nearly every day. 

It’s Phil, asleep. Phil, eyes clenched, body curled up with pain. Phil, sitting up and poking at a meal he clearly doesn’t want. Phil, yelling at Fury.

The time stamp reads yesterday.

The screen goes blank. Clint’s breathing like he’s just run across the city, and Tony is shouting and Steve is snarling out orders and Bruce and Natasha are grabbing hold of him, pulling him out of the room.


	13. John/Sherlock - Porny Commentfic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this for Skip before we began writing Infiltrate, as a sort of little inspiration. It worked ;) Warnings for total one hundred percent filth.

Sherlock isn't interested in sex.

To some, he knows, such a statement is akin to sacrilege, completely at odds with the human condition and laughably unlikely. He's young, he's male, he's relatively healthy, of course sex should be a top priority -- but it isn't, and it never has been. A life spent indulging in more meaningful, intellectual pursuits has always given him the fulfillment sex gives to those more base than he, so imagine his surprise when John Watson stumbles into his life and turns all Sherlock has ever held sacred on its ear.

It doesn't begin immediately. There isn't any single moment that Sherlock could point to, scratch his chin and hum and know it for truth as that momentary lapse in his judgment that threw down the barricades. No, rather like a disease it sneaks up on him, catches him unawares, until one morning he's sitting across from John at their small kitchen table, sharing a paper, and Sherlock realizes John is in his boxer briefs and little else, sipping tea in the humid summer air, and that Sherlock wants to leap across the table and nudge John up the wall and have him, right then and right there.

He doesn't know when fantasy becomes reality, only that he's shattered both their tea cups, upturned his chair, and torn John's newspaper and shorts and skin, the edge of his neck where shoulder meets throat. John's gasping, so beautifully confused, and Sherlock doesn't know what in the world has come over him, only that it's ridiculously simple to hike John up against the wall, lace those legs around his hips. John can't seem to catch his breath, and Sherlock is watching himself as if from across the room, as he digs his fingers into the butter and then pushes them up into John's body, detached and clinical, one and then two and then three. There's a fire in his gut he's never felt, and his confusion at his own reaction is compounded by John whimpering his name, as if Sherlock isn't taking great liberties with his person and he is, in some strange fashion, enjoying it.

The whimpering only gets louder, growing into choked off cries when Sherlock bullies his way into him, his fingers slippery on his cock and he's used rather too much butter -- melting point, 32 degrees -- because all he has to do is nudge his hips and suddenly John's grabbing his shoulders like iron and Sherlock is deep to the root.

They breathe.

Sherlock says, "I don't do this."

John laughs at him, quaking, and Sherlock reaches down and grabs hold of his hip, scar tissue hard against his hand, and bolsters him up. "You're doing me right now."

"You have a point." He nudges, shifts, and the feeling is not unlike nirvana, pleasure coiled deep in his belly, unidentifiable, indescribable. "This is not a natural progression."

John asks, filthy and gasping and broken against him, "N-natural progression?"

"Yes. The normal progression of a normal relationship," and he shifts impossibly deeper, his hips moving and tugging and the muscles in his back are never going to be the same, and his thighs burn as if he's run twelve blocks but it doesn't much matter, when John jerks and his eyes roll back and his fingers clamp on his shoulders again, iron will. "Dating. Cinema, restaurants, kissing."

"Sherlock," John says, moans, "Since when are we normal? We've been to the cinema, and we eat together every day, and you -- oh bloody Christ yes, yes again -- you may kiss me whenever you like."

Well. 

The idea had merit.

He tests it out, and finds that applying liberal use of his mouth to John's causes a not unpleasant reaction, and that the already-dodgy cabinetry is rattling with each of Sherlock's thrusts, and John's voice is rising and falling, moans of pleasure and pain and everything in between, and that it is altogether likely (79% probability) that Mrs. Hudson can hear them through the paper-thin walls. He really should stop. Really.

Instead, he takes John's weight and sweeps breakfast from the table before spreading him, spitted on his cock, over it. The table makes awful creaking noises, but Sherlock finds that the new position lends him a free hand to drop down between John's legs where he stood hard and proud and wet, so wet. It produces the most amazing noises from above, so Sherlock applies himself to different techniques, fingers and thumb and palm until John twists and spurts and sobs, and clutches Sherlock's cock so tightly inside that Sherlock climaxes long before he's ready, startled into pleasure so deep and so lovely that he loses all motor control and falls backwards against the wall, trembling and sated and horrified at himself.

Later, ages, eons later, John climbs up onto one elbow, the skin of his back making an awful sticking sound against the tabletop, and Sherlock looks up from the floor in time to see his come drip, glistening and beautiful, down the side of John's buttock, from the smeared-white clutch of his red, swollen hole.


	14. NCIS: Tony/Tim - Porny Ficlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a prompt from linnet_melody!

“Grueaa,” Tony gasped, head thrown back so the tendons of his neck stood out in stark relief. Sweat slid down the hollow of his throat, down the center of his chest, and Tim didn’t think he’d never seen anything so gorgeous in all his life. 

Tim grabbed at those flexing hips, straining muscle under his hands. In the shadow between Tony’s thighs Tim could just see his own cock slowly, slowly disappearing into the most delicious heat he’d ever felt, and he looked up the long plane of Tony’s body, golden skin and sweat-damp hair and eyes clenched shut. “Holy hannah,” he choked out, and Tony laughed, gasping and tense and then suddenly not, suddenly loose and—

He yelped as that slow, languorous slide in suddenly became easy. Before either of them were ready for it Tony was sitting on Tim’s thighs, Tim’s balls snug against the perfect round curve of his ass. Tony didn’t do anything like wail but the sound caught behind his teeth was close enough. 

“Tony,” Tim said, stroked that warm belly, the softened cock drooping between Tony’s thighs, and did his best to ignore the pleasure raging behind his eyes, the insistent, almost unbearable need to move. 

“Shut up, McHorny,” Tony hissed. He closed his eyes, jaw tense, and shifted minutely. 

Tony made another noise, a deeper one, and moved slowly, rotating his hips on Tim’s – on his *cock*, Tony was writhing on Tim’s cock -- and oh crap he wasn’t going to make it, not like this. Tony either didn’t know or didn’t care, caught up in his own pleasure or maybe his own pain, because those were tension lines on his forehead, that was his throat working, and oh, God, Tim was hurting him, he was—

“I said shut up,” Tony said, and Tim had to think to make sure he hadn’t actually said anything. 

“What? I didn’t—”

“No, you’re thinking it. You’re all tense. We’re having sex, first time, might-be-gay, cock-in-my-ass sex, and the last thing you should be,” Tony squeezed hard around Tim’s cock, “is tense.”

Tim made a sound surprisingly like a shriek and Tony snickered, like he was in any position to be snickering while mounted on Tim’s cock like a trophy. “Right now,” he added, wriggling like he was getting settled in, and Tim’s eyes about bugged out of his head, “Is not the time to be worried about rule twelve. Gibbs won’t find out.”

“But—”

“He won’t,” Tony said, eyes soft and ass so tight and grin absolutely infuriating. He squeezed around Tim’s hips with his knees, and just as suddenly as he’d been so prettily riding Tim like a cowboy at the rodeo he was on his back, splayed wide open, and Tim was sprawled between his thighs. “Besides,” he added, grinning, lazy and cock-sure and spread out like a fucking buffet, “Do you really want to moan about Gibbs, again, when there are other things you could be doing?”


	15. SGA fic: Baby Rodney

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, for those of you who know my writing you know that I go through phases. I tend to write a lot of angst and serious biznez fics, which means that the crack -- when it comes -- is _so crackalicious_ that it's sincerely the most ridiculous shit you've ever read in your life. Baby Rodney is just such a fic. 
> 
> I never finished this fic, but I'll tell you exactly what the end was going to look like at the end of this fic, I had a PLAN, but it's still good so yay. 
> 
> Hilarious cover of glee and joy by the delightful unamaga!

“Well, aside from a touch of asthma and his allergies, he’s as healthy as a horse,” Keller announced, looping her stethoscope back around her neck. “Much healthier than the babies I’m used to seeing in the Pegasus galaxy.”

John stared down at Rodney happily chewing on the edge of the shirt John had hastily thrown on him. He had two teeth clamped on it and with every nibble was showcasing more of his tubby little baby body. His tubby little _naked_ baby body. His tubby little naked _Rodney McKay body._

Keller crossed her arms defensively when neither John nor Woolsey broke into applause at the news. “Well, he could be a sickly baby, you know,” she sniffed. 

“But he’s fine?” 

There was nothing about this situation that was ‘fine’. McKay was _cute_ and also _blond_ , if the two hairs on his head could be called blond. He had enormous blue eyes and an upturned nose, all set on a tiny cherub face that belonged on a baby food jar. That wide, crooked mouth had what could only be called an adorable pout to it. His _chin_ was _dimpled_. He gurgled cheerfully, angelic mouth spreading for a wet smile, happiness radiating from every pore of his little body.

It was the creepiest thing John had ever seen in his entire life.

“Aside from his citrus allergy, he’s healthy. Good heartbeat and blood pressure for an infant this age,” Keller said, like it was a normal, everyday event for Keller to be saying this about a baby Rodney. A Rodney who was a baby. _An infant Rodney_ , who was studying Keller’s penlight with concentration lining every inch of chub. 

Woolsey crossed his arms tight behind his back furrowed his brow. Throw in the hair and the stern line of his mouth and John was reminded uncomfortably of someone’s father. He set the look on John and he felt his wall of cool crumble. “What happened?”

“I couldn’t get much out of Zelenka before we brought Rodney up here,” John said, understatement of the century considering the man nearly had to be sedated and hadn‘t stopping crying hysterically for an hour. “A sensor started going off in section twelve of the eastern-most tower around four this morning. They went down to check it out, found the area unstable. Zelenka stopped speaking English there, but I got that they were in some sort of lab. He’s looking into it now.”

Woolsey’s lips thinned even more, if possible. He stared at Rodney with that diplomatic look in his eye, the same one that said I am freaked out beyond all reason, but I am going to keep an open mind. “Can he understand us, Dr. Keller?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t think so. There really isn’t a way to test something like this,” Keller explained, when she glanced at him. “Even if he were able to understand us, he doesn’t have the motor skills to get that understanding across. And then there’s,” she motioned slightly, to where Rodney was chewing on the end of the penlight.

“He isn’t in any pain?”

“Nope.” Keller tickled a tiny arm, and they all watched with varying degrees of horror as Rodney giggled. Loudly. “I’m going to run some tests, because though he’s fine now…”

This was the Pegasus galaxy. Things never stayed ‘fine’ for long. Though what tests Keller could perform for something like this were beyond John’s ability to understand. He was pretty sure they entailed something in the way of chicken bones.

“Complete genetic manipulation of this form is so far beyond our current capabilities that it may as well be impossible. Was thought to be impossible, actually,” Keller said, crossing her arms tightly. “But you have to admit that the implications of something like this are enormous.”

Colonel Sumner’s face flew through John’s mind. “You think this could be some sort of device to reverse the effects of being fed on?”

“It makes sense. Rodney simply hasn’t been changed into a baby, he _is_ a baby. At the moment he’s a perfectly healthy one year old, but that’s up in the air. He may progress at a normal rate, or not at all,” Keller said, taking away the piece of the penlight Genius Baby McKay had been about to swallow. “Either way…”

“We’re not there yet,” Woolsey said, and smiled tightly. “We have the best minds concentrating their efforts on this.”

“I just hope you and Zelenka have an answer before the inevitable happens, Doc,” John added, straightening up from his slouch.

Keller’s eyebrows jumped up high on her forehead. “Inevitable?”

“I know for a fact Rodney had mac n’ cheese for dinner last night, and I’ve been on enough missions with him to know the man is nothing if not frighteningly regular.”

“We brought supplies for this sort of thing.” Off of John’s look, she amended, “Okay, not exactly this sort of thing, since I pass out contraceptives as dinner mints, and never expected our chief scientist to regress several decades, but better to be prepared. We have enough diapers to last for months.”

Yeah, well, there were some things a man never wanted his friends and trusted colleagues to see, and it was himself in a diaper. This was a different situation, though. This wasn’t because of bullet wounds and colon reconstructions, of men’s legs torn off, of horribly gut wounds and the like. This was because Rodney was a baby, and John was never, ever going to let him live this down, not _ever_ if John had anything to say about it. Rodney’s _grandkids_ would still be feeling the burn of humiliation.

He needed to locate a camera post haste.

“And while you do, the Colonel is going to take a team down to the area Doctors McKay and Zelenka were investigating,” Woolsey said

“I am?”

“You are.” Woolsey said, finally smiling down at Rodney, who was staring up at them as if he’d just realized they were all standing there. 

John cleared his throat. “Zelenka did mention something about getting some pieces of the damaged console up and running.”

“Please be careful.” After a moment, he added, “We don’t have the personnel to start a daycare center.”

“Funny.” John peered down at Rodney as he passed. “If you can work out some theories using A-B-C blocks, Rodney, it’d be appreciated.” 

Rodney’s grin followed him out the door.

 

.

Since coming to Atlantis, Rodney had taken on the role of glorified mechanic. Sure, he had an almost scary understanding of Ancient technology, but then again so did Zelenka. John sometimes forgot that Rodney’s intelligence didn’t come from knowing how things worked, which he did, but with the ease he understood and used that information. He was one of those people who liked to know, wanted to know, and would do anything in his power to get that knowledge, especially if he got to make a pie chart afterward. He was an inquisitive man; it only made sense that he’d be a curious child. 

That, and Rodney had a surprising knack for entertaining himself. John had a sudden sympathy for Rodney’s parents. 

The infirmary was eerily quiet when John walked in, the kind of quiet that came after natural disasters, and explosions, and inappropriate declarations of love. So quiet, in fact, that John could almost hear the machinery ticking, like a car engine did after it had been turned off. 

Every window in the infirmary stood open. The papers blanketing the normally immaculate infirmary floor fluttered in the warm sea breeze. Lights flashed overhead, tables shuddered, doors opened and closed seemingly all on their own, and every single piece of Ancient machinery in the infirmary was on, blinking expectantly as Ancient tech tended to do when it was idle.

In the center of it all sat Rodney, a foot tall picture of happiness, with a stethoscope in his ears and what looked suspiciously like a tongue depressed tucked under his arm.

Never in his entire life had John wanted to turn around and go back in the direction he’d come in as badly as he did in that moment. Had he been anything but an officer and a gentleman he’d have escaped like the coward he was, far, far away from the evil permeating from every inch of Rodney’s chunky baby body. It was damn unlucky that he had a sick sense of obligation to care for everyone under his command, even cranky Canuck’s with caffeine addiction problems. He was sure that one day it would be his undoing.

“Heya, Rodney.”

“Aahbb-bah.” 

At least someone had dressed him in something better than a t-shirt fifteen times too big, and thankfully _not_ overalls or anything else people dressed babies in that made them look ridiculous, which would have surely scarred John for life. Not that the miniature sweat pants and sneakers were any better, and it had to be someone with a sick sense of humor to have put a bright yellow t-shirt on him. 

“Hey, buddy,” John said, crouching down. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think the Crocks that belonged to a pair of feet half hiding behind a cabinet was Keller’s head nurse. “How’s it going?”

Rodney kept right on smiling. “Nnn!”

“Yeah, I can see that,” John said. “Listen… I know the lights are pretty cool, but,” he flicked them, and all the other machinery, off with a mental nudge. “Keller’s less likely to kill you this way, trust me.”

“Ahhhbb.” 

Right. “Ahb. Yeah, buddy.” 

Keller walked out of her office. Her normally coiffed hair stuck straight up, like she’d been running her fingers through it. There were alarming stains on her lab coat, and two of the buttons on her shirt had been ripped off and were hanging by a thread. She was unwittingly giving everyone a view of what looked a whole lot like a blue and pink unicorn. Huh. “Colonel?”

“Hey, Doc, what--”

“It’s better if you don’t ask me any questions, Colonel,” Keller said, her voice shaking with either rage or suppressed tears. “If you aren't horribly wounded in some way that requires medical attention, just turn around and go the way you came.”

John opened his mouth, then let it click shut again. He saw the next twenty years of big, sharp needles flash in Keller’s eyes, promising sweet, sweet retribution if he so much as uttered one word.

John spun on his heel, and he'd nearly got to the door when he heard a sound. He glanced back over his shoulder and there was the short stack himself, his eyes glassy, his lower lip trembling.

“Rodney?”

Rodney’s chin wobbled even worse, tears filling his eyes full. His chin quivered, his chest heaved, his head ducked down. John had only seen the expression one other time on Rodney’s face but it was the same, down to the crooked mouth and the dejected hunch of his shoulders. There had been ruin in Rodney’s eyes, then, bleeding his expression dry of everything but misery. Now, the only difference was that his face was smaller and his eyes were bigger, more open to every emotion, and infinitely more innocent. 

The tears came, trembling down Rodney’s face. He hugged Keller’s stethoscope to him, and his entire body shook with every tear. The ATA controlled tech seemed to understand because lights flashed, windows and doors opened and closed, scanners came on, and machinery beeped and pinged, all in chorus with the swells of Rodney’s sobs.

John desperately tried to turn it all off but it wasn’t really listening to him, which was surprising enough that John figured he could be forgiven for making what he would later think of as A Fatal Mistake. That is, he leaned down and awkwardly pat Rodney on the head. 

The moment he touched him, all the Ancient technology turned off.

A cold shock of horror like he hadn’t felt since, oh, last week raced down John’s spine. It only grew worse when Keller’s mouth fell open.

“What the…?” Keller bent over to peer at him. Rodney stared back, lower lip wibbling. “Did you--?”

“No!” 

Keller straightened and rubbed her fingers through her already mussed hair. Add in the muttering, the shifty eyes, the pacing and the neon pink unicorn, and she looked like a crazy person. “We know that every Ancient had this gene. It makes sense that children would be able to operate Ancient technology, probably even easier than an adult would. “

“So?”

“So I haven’t been able to control Rodney, no matter what I do, but all you had to do was touch him.” Keller peered at him. “Likely because the both of you share the same variation of the gene, as a father and son would.” 

John didn’t like where this was going. “Doc…” 

Keller beamed the beam of the evil and wicked. “Take him with you.”

“ _What_?”

“Take him with you, Colonel.”

“But he’s -- doesn’t he need supervision? Medical supervision?”

“There isn’t anything I can do for him at the moment.” Keller did what could only be called a _victory squirm_.

“I’m not his father!”

“No, but you’re the next best thing, wacky Uncle John.” Keller clapped her hands and rubbed them briskly together. 

Oh, oh God. “I’m terrible with kids. I’m wacky Uncle John until things go horribly _wrong_.”

“Just take him.”

“But–”

“Take him.”

“Doc–”

“Now!”

Rodney promptly plunked onto his butt and screamed. John dared a peek at Keller, who he figured was about ten seconds from committing a horrible crime on Rodney’s person. 

John did what any man would do – snatched Rodney up, howling like a banshee, and made like a tree.

 

.

To say John was angry was a tad of an understatement.

He appealed to Woolsey. To Zelenka. To Keller. He tried to make them see reason. No way could the military leader of the base be seen carrying around a baby, even if that baby was Rodney. Yes, he and Rodney were friends and teammates, but there was only so much a man would do for another man, and John drew the line at changing diapers and wiping drool, thank you.

John tried to hoist Rodney off to Woolsey. That didn’t go as planned.

“Colonel, as much as I--”

“Ten minutes, that’s all I ask.”

To say Rodney _screamed_ was a vast understatement. He wailed. He shrieked. He sobbed. Every bit of Ancient tech in the control room went on the fritz, in time to Rodney’s tiny yet powerful voice. He cried so hard that his face turned purple, and stopped the very second that John, unable to stand the guilt, turned around, marched back into Woolsey’s office, and snatched him back.

Woolsey had the audacity to smile apologetically, looking much more amused than the situation warranted. “Sorry, Colonel.”

The scene repeated itself with Zelenka, only Zelenka almost dropped Rodney when trying to pass him back. This, of course, just made him scream all the harder.

Keller, that evil blond traitor, was nowhere to be found.

Since no one John trusted would take him, and because John _didn’t_ trust Rodney in the arms of the fumbling and geeky scientists, and because he didn’t want to witness his hard-ass Marines turn into mushy piles of goo at the site of a cute wittle baby, John sucked it up and found himself Colonel Babysitter to a helpless infant. A helpless infant who just happened to be the most arrogant man in two galaxies, and who Atlantis apparently loved with her whole heart, if the almost gentle way doors opened and closed for him had anything to say about it.

“I don’t find this amusing, Rodney. I know we’re friends and all, but there’s only so far friendship should be taken before it just starts to get weird. You reading me?”

Rodney didn’t bother looking up. There was no confidence or superiority in the curve of his back, no smug self satisfaction in the tilt of his chin. He just sat there in the curve of John’s arm, trembling and hugging Keller’s stethoscope to him like John had seen him do his laptop more than once. And the _eyes_. Big and blue, they filled his whole face, but there wasn’t any intelligence to speak of, no over-inflated ego. They were wide and wet with tears. He had a death grip on John’s shirt, as if he didn’t really trust John not to drop him on his head. His pudgy little body seemed to have molded perfectly to John’s shoulder, fitting against him just right. 

“You’ll forgive me if I say I’m completely creeped out by the whole situation.”

Rodney sniffled pathetically, snot running right down his upper lip, and laid his head on John’s shoulder as much as he could with the awkward way John was holding him, thereby smearing said snot clear across John’s nice, crisp, clean black shirt. John closed his eyes and counted to ten.

Lorne cleared his throat slightly. “Sir?”

“Yes, Major.”

“Uh...” Lorne cleared his throat again, shifting a little. “The rest of my team is here, sir.”

John opened his eyes. The two Marines on Lorne’s team were ignoring Rodney like the biggest, fattest, pinkest elephant ever thought into existence. Parrish, on the other hand, hadn’t yet realized that lives were at stake and openly stared, already chock full of questions Lorne was keeping at bay with a restraining hand on his arm. 

Rodney’s breath hitched on a sigh against John’s shoulder.

“I want you to take your team and go down to South Corridor 12 out on the eastern tower, C block. There’s a lot of damage from the flooding when we first got here. I need you to secure the area so Zelenka can get back down there.”

There was only so much Lorne could do to keep his scientist quiet, so John wasn’t all that surprised when Parrish, smart guy that he was, put two and two together and said loudly, “That’s _Dr. McKay_?”

Everyone within a fifty foot radius turned to stare. 

The McKay in question jerked against John’s shoulder once, before bursting into tears. 

Lorne, realizing this was not the time for questions, or maybe seeing hot, raw Colonel death in John’s eyes, gave the skinnier man an almighty shove in the direction his retreating Marines were already hustling in. “Yes sir, we’ll be ready, sir,” he said over his shoulder.

 

.

Rodney sat on John’s bed, chewing on the edge of the blanket and babbling to himself. 

John watched him through the reflection of the mirror, wiping the drool off his neck with the edge of his shirt. “You know, I’m not the kid type. Kids who go home at the end of the day, sure, but not the kind who stay. You can understand how this would be weird for me.”

“Uh-mm-naaa,” Rodney said, chewing thoughtfully.

“And it’s not that I don’t like kids, because I do. I’m just not sure if this is going to work out, Rodney.” He scrubbed a towel over his face. “I’ve never even held a baby until today, so you can see how I can’t take care of you.”

He peered in the mirror to see how that news came across, but Rodney was still chewing on the blanket, ignorant to everything around him. He’d lost interest with the pillow, and was now doing his damndest to take his socks off, the smallest John had ever seen, blanket caught in his three teeth.

“You’ll probably be more comfortable with a woman, right? With the breasts and the softness and all. If you're dead set against Keller, maybe Katie Brown? Well, no,” he made a face at himself in the mirror. “Once you’ve had your dick in a woman she doesn’t exactly want to be your mother. At least not usually. Plus, you know, the whole messy break up thing. How about Teyla? She and Torrin are coming back from New Athos in a few days, you know. She’d like that, and I’m pretty sure you’ve never had your dick anywhere near her, except that one time we all had to get naked for the harvest ceremony on MS9-442, but that doesn‘t really count.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair, mussing it up even worse.

Rodney flapped his hands up and down. The bed moved with him, and Rodney giggled every time he bounced, clapping his hands wildly with the joy of his discovery.

It was so perfectly McKay John felt the laughter building in his throat before he could stop it. Rodney looked up, startled, and before John’s very eyes broke into the biggest, sweetest, dumbest grin he’d ever seen. “I told Zelenka you’d find a way to make everyone do your bidding, Rodney, but this was taking it too far." 

“Ah-uhnn-na,“ Rodney answered conversationally, sucking on the end of Keller's stethoscope.

Yeah well, John wasn’t a rocket scientist, but he wasn’t stupid. “You hungry?” 

Rodney blinked at him expectantly, and when John offered his arms, readily lifted up to him. One tiny hand fisted in his shirt, and the other smacked the wet stethoscope against John’s head, _hard_. “Geez, I get it. _Don’t be an idiot, Sheppard, I’m always hungry._ There’s no need for the violence.”

Rodney didn't buy it, and smacked him again for good measure.

 

.

“I’m not entirely sure what the fascination is, here, Rodney,” John said, chin propped on one hand. 

The short-stack himself was sitting cheerfully on the table, as John hadn't dared to ask the smitten kitchen staff for something to sit him in. Rodney, of course, thought that this was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

“Its shiny, its pointy, it’s a little scooped. It’s a spoon.”

The spoon which, at this very moment, held all the answers to the universe if Rodney’s enormous eyes were anything to go by. Then again it, like the rest of Rodney, was smeared with pudding. It was very likely the word of God was written in that chocolatey goodness.

“Ahnna-na-na,” Rodney said, playing with the chocolate on his spoon with his tiny fingers. As soon as he had enough, he smeared it on his pants, beaming at the mess with what could only be called delight. He didn’t seem to have realized that John was busily feeding him mashed potatoes and puréed peas.

Half of it rolled down his chin. He offered chocolaty fingers to John.

“I don’t remember you being this generous. This messy, yes. This generous, no. Especially not when it comes to chocolate.” 

Rodney hummed, proving John right by sticking all of his fingers in his mouth at once to suck the chocolate off. Mashed potatoes rolled down clear to his elbow. “Ahh-mama!” 

John paled.

Rodney blinked.

“’Wacky Uncle John’, Rodney,” John muttered, and wondered if he could drown himself in Rodney's mashed potatoes.

Ronon thumped down beside them, his tray clattering, and dug in before he’d finished sitting down with his usual gusto.

“Ahhh-ma?”

Rodney stared at him around his fingers. Ronon stared back around his own.

“Rodney, Ronon. Ronon, Rodney.”

Ronon’s fingers popped from his mouth. “McKay?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s little.”

Ahh, Ronon, master of the obvious. “He and Zelenka found a device in the unexplored section of Atlantis early this morning that…” He waved a hand in Rodney’s direction. 

Ronon wiggled his sticky fingers. “You people are weird."

John sighed. “Yeah.”

Rodney whined and made grabby hands at Ronon's plate. Ronon gave him a French fry. Rodney, ever the generous spirit, gave Ronon his spoon.

 

.

Sometime after the pudding and cleanup, Rodney decided all the carrying stuff was getting on his nerves, if all the kicking, whining, and squirming had anything to say. Granted, their stride became slower, but Rodney got to places under his own power, and so long as he had one firm grip on two of John’s fingers and he could stop to explore at least once every minute, he was happy. 

They checked out some boxes in one of the off-corridor closets, a paper clip in the gate room, a shiny piece of wiring in the corner of the second floor corridor, a bit of string from one of the transporters, and a piece of paper someone had dropped and forgotten about, which John made into a paper airplane.

A normal five minute walk from the mess to the infirmary took over an hour, but it was an hour John hadn’t realized he needed until he’d gotten it. Rodney in the raw was just as curious as he was in his more refined form, and oddly, just as innocent over that pleasure. It shouldn’t have surprised him. Plus, though John would go to his grave first before he ever said it out loud, it was… kind of, sort of, a little bit… cute. 

And if John soaked up the envious looks, the soft female eyes that followed them down the hall, well then. Even brilliant, genius women were slaves to the baby lure. Not that John would ever do something so low as to use Rodney as date bait, of course, though he assumed if there had been an amendment to the guy code for this particular situation, it would say ‘if ever turned into a baby, it is acceptable -- nay, _expected_ \-- that you use me to get scientist babe tail.’

Rodney grinned up at him, as if he knew exactly what John was thinking about.

By the time the door to his quarters closed quietly behind him and he’d willed the bedside lamp on, they were both yawning, and Rodney’s hands were black. 

“Okay, buddy, bath is in order. But, let me–” He let go of Rodney’s hand and crouched down to get the extra blankets from under his bunk. Rodney crouched as well, stethoscope firmly under his arm, and peered underneath too.

“You know, Rodney, I’ll bet I can get Dr. Greensburg to jerry rig a car seat for you, so I can take you to the mainland to play with the other kids. Yeah, I know it would make your humiliation complete, but hear me out. Zelenka said, ‘Will be a few hours, day at most’,” John said, with a passable Zelenka impression. Rodney stared up at him, transfixed by the sound. “Which means at least a week, in geek-speak.”

It shouldn’t have felt so _normal_. Rodney was, after all, a baby. John was, after all, a bachelor. They were both, after all, completely terrified of children. 

John lifted Rodney up, still awkwardly, but Rodney shifted a little, and John moved a little, and it was better. “I’d give anything to be a kid again. Well, okay, not the pimples and stuff, but things used to be so much easier. No bills, no woman problems, no killing space vampires.” John’s lips curved. “Okay, so maybe I killed space vampires. I was, after all, the coolest space cowboy astronaut ever.”

Rodney yawned, crooked baby mouth sleepy and mushy. John felt a little ridiculous, but he couldn’t help gently tickling the lopsided mouth until Rodney smiled sleepily at him. 

He set Rodney down by the toilet and flipped the bath on with a thought. Ancient bathrooms, in all of their more interesting aspects, weren’t really made for this, but the tub was bath _like_ , and John figured they worked the same way. Sort of. “Though what the Ancients got out of triangle shaped bathtubs, I’ll never know,” John said, and looked in the box Keller had given him.

He came out with what resembled pajamas, soap (called, with all its emasculating glory, “‘Giggles n’ Tickles.’ It sounds like porno staring the teletubbies.”), a sort of soft baby towel, and a squeaky yellow duck at the bottom of the box which John stared at for a good fifteen seconds. He squeaked it for Rodney’s amusement. “Keller has a sick sense of humor.” 

Rodney didn’t giggle, or babble, or make any sign he’d heard, because Rodney was shaking so hard he’d lost hold of his stethoscope – so hard he sat down abruptly, whimpering with the terror written plain as day on his face.

“Hey, pal,” John said, crouching down, and abruptly found himself with an armful of baby, who would have crawled clear into John’s skin if he could have. “Hey,” he murmured, tucking the tiny head close to his shoulder. “Hey, buddy. What’s wrong?” 

The tears came. It was different from before – there was no temper, no hurt feelings. These tears were right from the heart, and so full of fear it hurt to listen to. Wet, red eyes stared at the tub, at the falling water.

And just like that, John got it.

“Oh,” he said softly, and with a thought, the bathtub turned off. It didn’t stop the shaking, but the tears became whimpers, soft and quiet. “Hey,” he said again, sitting on the tile and leaning against the wall. “Its okay. Look, got it off, see? The water isn’t on anymore. Just wanted to get you cleaned up a little.” John awkwardly brushed his hand down the back of soft hair. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, okay? I didn’t then, and I’m not now. I found you, didn’t I? Compared to two thousand feet of water, a foot and a half is nothing.”

He moved to do stand and the trembling started again, worse than before. John had no choice but to sit down again, holding Rodney just as tightly as he was being held. “Okay,” he said softly, pressed his whiskered cheek against a downy head. “I get it. It’s okay.”

And he did. John got it, and he was embarrassed for them both, because this was _Rodney_ who was pressing his face into John’s neck. Fearless, frustrating Rodney, with all his neuroses, with all his pride and intelligence, covered in chocolate and dirt, with a dirty diaper and a tear streaked face. 

And John knew what Rodney would do, muttering and complaining the whole way but _doing_ it, if the situation were reversed.

John shifted, just enough to get his snot-covered shirt off, then his shoes. Rodney watched, fascinated by the laces but not quite willing to let go, even though his sudden grip on John’s chest hair and dog tags was less than comfortable. John worked his belt open, squirming out of his pants and socks, then pulled Rodney’s own clothes and diaper off. “Just don’t pee in the water, okay? Because we’re friends and all, but that would be taking it too far, buddy.”

Then he stood and Rodney started crying again, that deep pain kind of crying that wrenched at John’s heart. “Shhh,” he said softly, lifting Rodney up into his arms. “I know.” 

He stepped over their clothes and slowly lowered them both into the tub, his boxers billowing before soaking through and sticking to his legs. He kept Rodney pressed close, and the water enveloped them both, and Rodney cried, and cried, and cried like John had never heard before. Not that either of them had ever cried, of course, except when they were in manly pain and a few tears were kind of expected, but this was heartbreaking, made worse by the fact that Rodney couldn’t help himself. 

“It’s okay, Rodney,” John murmured. “Just a little water.” He scooped water up in one hand and ran it over Rodney’s legs. “See?” 

Rodney whimpered, loudly. “Shhhh,” John said softly. "I know, I get it." He picked up the soap one handed, squeezing out a dollop onto Rodney’s heaving back, and with the palm of his hand, worked it into foam. “When I was two or so I almost drowned at the Y. I know, that’s about as cliche' as you can get, but I was little, my dad kind of sucked when it came to fatherly instincts, and I had all the common sense of a turnip.” John paused. “You know, I’ve never said that out loud. He wasn’t a bad man, my father, just more interested in his work than me. And who could blame him. He had a lot of men under him, a lot of responsibility. And when he left the service and went into business with my grandfather, he had even less time, especially once Dave came into the picture.” 

He stroked Rodney’s back, his arms, the warm weight of him a comfort. Rodney was quiet, eyes partly closed, his breaths even and low. He was listening, John knew. Understanding, probably not. But if he was listening he wasn’t scared, which was the whole point anyway. "He had my whole life planned out for me. If you'd asked him before he retired from the Army if I was going to go to college, he'd have told you it'd be to whichever college I worked to pay for. After the windfall with my grandfather, it was Ivy League this, prep school that. And Dave, Dave fit right into that. Me, not so much." He frowned at the ceiling. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”

He glanced down, peering around wet soapy hair, and felt the quietest of snuffles against his shoulder. Rodney’s eyelashes lay on his cheek in sleep.

Something funny tugged in John’s stomach.

 

.

That night, Rodney hogged most of pillow and most of John’s space, smushed against John’s ribs as close as he could get. John did _not_ wipe the trail of drool from Rodney’s cheek away, but neither did he give him a nudge. He was too tired, and besides, if Rodney was asleep he wasn’t _crying_.

At least that’s what John told himself, and if he curled his arm around him in case Rodney rolled over and fell off the bed, there was no one to see him anyway.

 

.

It was dark.

Cold crept in from everywhere, icy fingers digging into the base of his spine. It seemed to envelop him, from the chill of the metal at his back to the water around him, seeping into him, claiming him. It was dark, pitch black even, but John knew without having to look that he was trapped on the bottom of the ocean in a Jumper slowly filling with water, with the alien from Abyss staring at him through the windshield. 

It was fear, because dammit, that alien had always scared him when he was a kid, and terror because blood was running out of his him and across Rodney’s pale skin, red and raw and dripping off his jaw. The side of his face was gone from that stupid damn propeller of that stupid damn chopper he could hear above the Jumper, so close he swore he could smell the desert and feel the grit of sand in his eyes.

 _I’m so sorry_.

Water came up to his shoulder, then over his neck, and John knew that this was the end, that he was going to die; this time there wouldn’t be any Hail Mary, no last minute save. John didn’t want to die, not when he had something to live for, not when he had Atlantis and friendship and Rodney, who needed John to hold him and feed him pudding and make sure he didn’t fall.

Freezing cold water lapped at his mouth like a bolt of terror, cold and needle sharp, right through the center of him. Instinct took over and John turned his face up, prolonging death, hoping against hope as he pressed his mouth to the roof of the Jumper and swallowed the last bit of air, that someone, anyone, would come and save them.

And then there was nothing but cold, cold, cold, sea salt in his mouth and Rodney staring at him with dead eyes.

He opened his mouth to scream and French came out, instead.

“…et zed, maintenant je sais mon alphabet, chante avec moi la prochaine fois!”

John opened his eyes.

A happy laugh and the disturbing sound of metal clinking against metal alarmed John to the fact that something very awful was happening in his room. He rolled onto his back, then his side, and peered over the edge of the bed.

A little kid sat in a pool of sunlight on the floor. He couldn’t have been more than three years old, skinny as a rail with a head full of blond curls so wild that it looked like he’d stuck his finger in a light socket. Spread around him were the remnants of John’s electric razor, alarm clock, and laptop. The box of frosted flakes John had squirreled away weeks ago sat at his side, overturned, the little plastic race car prize from inside beside his screw driver. The kid was crunching on a handful of cereal, sticky sugar gluing bits of paper and assorted odds and ends to his fingers. He was naked but for one of John‘s shirts he‘d obviously found in the dresser, if the opened drawers were anything to say.

Rodney looked up, and when he noticed John staring, smiled and said, “B’jour.”

John stared at him. Speech… speech was good. What sounded a whole hell-of-a lot like French was not so good. But they’d progressed, and progression was nine-tenths of the law. Or something. “Hi there.”

Rodney offered his sticky handful. “Want?” 

“No, uh, no thanks.” 

He stuffed it in his mouth and smiled around it. “J'ai fait ce!” 

“What?”

Rodney turned his creation around, and John saw two light bulb eyes, a crooked mouth, and when Rodney pushed something on its side, the little robot’s eyes blinked on and off. “J'ai fait ce!” 

John slowly rolled out of bed and sank to the floor beside the unholy mess, his lips curving up despite himself. “You made that, buddy?”

“Meredith,” he said, and the look he gave John, the very same one he gave him as an adult that all but screamed ‘I’m surrounded by idiots’, made something tight ease in John’s chest.

“Right. Sorry, I forgot,” John said, and leaned against his bunk, mouth twitching mightily. Rodney, with his big curls and Gerber baby face, didn't so much as look at him, instead stuffing another handful of cereal in his mouth, fingers and all, and did something complicated with the screw driver in the robot's guts. “This is pretty neat,” he said, tapping one fingertip against the edge of the robot.

“Oui.” Rodney looked up under that wild hair, smiling a sweet, disarming smile. “Happy?”

“More than you know,” he said. Rodney tapped his screwdriver into his robot to tighten things together. “Hey -- uh, Meredith? What’s my name?”

Rodney didn’t even bother looking up. “Colonel Sheppard.” 

“Yeah?”

A mischievous grin curled Rodney’s lips. “Colonel Mama.”

“Hey!”

“Mama, mama, mama!” Rodney yelled, and yeah, like John was going to take that from a short-stack. 

John tackled him, and by the time Rodney squealed for mercy in a strange mixture of French and English, the robot was halfway across the room, Rodney was laughing so hard he could barely breathe, and John was grinning from ear to ear.

 

.

Keller stared.

Rodney banged the heels of his bare feet against the gurney. His knees, peeking out from under John's t-shirt, were streaked with dirt. Fingers itching, John finally gave into the impulse to hike the collar of the shirt back up onto narrow shoulders, which made Rodney giggle and scrunch his neck up away from John's ticklish touch. "Hey!"

"Sorry, small fry, you're half naked there."

The comment did exactly what John thought it would -- Rodney cracked up, big bright smile and shaking curls, and John could practically _hear_ the collective dreamy sigh of the nursing staff. "Not!"

"Are so," John said, nodding sagely from his spot against the door frame. "I can see your neck."

"Yours! I see it too!"

"Not," John countered, and hiked his t-shirt up around his throat, just to make Rodney giggle again, bright and happy.

"Okay," Keller said, looking not a little freaked out. Served her right. "Rodney--"

"My name is Meredith. Meredith Rodney McKay," Rodney said proudly. John gave the good doctor props for not cracking up, though it twitched mightily at the corners of her mouth before she got it under control. “My borot is Zenka.”

"Ah. Nice to meet you, Meredith, Zenka."

"Enchanté"

John grinned. “Told you.”

“This is fascinating, Colonel.”

“Took him a minute to remember English. The accent is the kicker.”

“This is fascinating,” Keller said again, eyes wide. “Bilingual understanding in a child this small is commonplace, but he’s _forty one_. He's never let on that he could speak French, or any other language. In fact, it doesn't say anything about a second language in his file -- though rejecting, or forgetting, a secondary tongue after a certain age is fairly common place in families that use one language more than the other." 

Rodney frowned. “You talk a lot."

“That’s rich coming from you, short stack,” John said with a smirk. Rodney, apparently not realizing this was an insult, puffed his tiny chest out.

“And he remembers everyone?”

“Ronon, Simpson, even Sergeant Pulov. Everyone we’ve run into he greeted by name and showed off his robot,” John said, crossing his arms.

“Zenka has eyes!” Rodney said, loudly, over whatever Keller was about to say, thrusting his robot out for her to see. “They blink!”

The corners of her mouth turned up. “They sure do. He’s a beautiful robot.”

“He is not _beautiful_. He is neat.”

“Of course,” Keller said, examining his face gently. “Does anything hurt you?”

Rodney shook his head, feet banging the bed again, kicking Keller every time he did. “Hungry.”

“We’ll get you something to eat in a moment.” She carefully felt Rodney’s throat, his ears, down his neck. “Do you know where you are, Meredith?”

“Atlantis!” He smiled. 

“That’s right, you’re in Atlantis. What do you do here?”

Rodney frowned at her. “Play?”

“Other than play.”

“Eat?”

Keller exhaled and gently ran her hands down Rodney’s arms, squeezing as she went. “I mean, what’s your job here?”

The clueless look on Rodney’s face would have been hilarious any other – okay, no, it was pretty hilarious. Affronted at John’s snickering, he lifted his chin. “I’m smart.”

“Yes, you are,” Keller said, and the glare she gave John promised him she had big, sharp needles in his future.

“Real, real smart. I build things, and play piano, but there's no piano in Atlantis, right?”

“Not that we know of.”

Confusion warred over Rodney's face for a moment before he brushed Keller’s comment aside with the lift of his tiny chin. “I like numbers. Un, deux, trois! And I like my baby sister and cookies and Hootie and papa.” He blinked and looked around. “Are they here?”

“No. You left them on Earth for safe keeping, remember?”

Rodney went still. “Why?”

“Because you’re having adventures with me,” John supplied smoothly, when Keller floundered for something to say. “We’re having fun.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s a whole new galaxy.” John pretended not to notice Rodney’s eyes were wet. “Remember the Jumpers?”

“My sister neither? And Hootie?”

“No. But you’ve got Teyla, and me, and Ronon,” John added. “Maybe you can play with Ronon today. Show off your robot to your minions.”

“I don’t like onions,” Rodney said, voice shaking. “But I like waffles. We can eat waffles?”

“You can have all the waffles you want,” Keller said, gently palpitating Rodney’s belly. “I want you to tell me if you don’t feel well, okay? If your tummy hurts, or if your head aches. Anything at all, you understand?” 

“Oui,” Rodney said, and buried his face against Zenka’s metal head. It had to hurt, but Rodney didn’t seem to care.

All it would take was one well-timed comment and John would be free. Rodney was old enough now not to mess with the Ancient tech -- in fact, none of the machinery in the infirmary had so much as beeped in the last hour, even though Rodney was visibly upset. John could give up all responsibility for him, have him back in the safety and security of the infirmary where he belonged until they figured this thing out.

Except.

If this had been Rodney as John knew him, he’d have ditched him into the arms of Count Keller, collector of blood samples, in a heartbeat. But it wasn’t. This was a scared little kid who’d made himself his own whacked version of a teddy bear for comfort, a ridiculously _Rodney_ thing to do. A kid who was sitting there taking up exactly one foot of space and trembling so hard he was making the paper he was sitting on crinkle. The kid he’d bathed last night, tiny fingers tangled in his dog tags and back hitching with tears under John’s hand. The kid who was more of a brother to him than his blood.

“I think they’ve still got maple syrup.”

Snot ran down clear to Rodney's lip. He swiped it away with the back of his hand, smearing it across his cheek. “Really?”

“Sure. He done, Doc?”

“Yep.” She peered at Rodney. “No running off today, okay? Atlantis can be dangerous for a little guy. Be a good boy for the Colonel.”

Yeah, Keller thought this was way too funny. Revenge would come to her, swift and silent and full of Colonel wrath. He glared over Rodney’s head as he helped Rodney jump down. 

He was pretty sure he saw Keller give him a smug smile from the corner of his eye. He made sure the infirmary doors closed behind him with as much of a slam as he could muster, from an Atlantis clearly laughing her big metallic ass off at him.

 

.

“I had a little turtle, his name was Tiny Tim. I put him in the bathtub, to see if he could swim.”

John winced.

“He drank up all the water… he ate up all the soap! And now he’s sick in bed with bubbles in his throat!”

John closed his eyes.

“Bubble, bubble, bubble! Bubble, bubble, bubble! _Pop_!”

Rodney burst into giggles, as did half the Mess hall who’d heard him. John was pretty sure he’d seen a video camera at some point, but couldn’t prove it. 

“You’re never living this down, McKay, not ever -- you’ll be old and gray and accepting your Nobel Prize, and the committee who puts a tape together to commemorate your advances in Physics will have a clip of this very moment,” John muttered, and propped his head on his hand.

Like Rodney even cared. He and Zenka were enjoying their waffles, the both of them sticky with maple syrup. “I like to sing.”

“No kidding.”

“I can sing Twinkle Star, and ABC, and Frère Jacques.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Cause I’m real smart. And I know numbers!”

“You’ve said.”

Beside him, Ronon sat stoic and silent and _laughing at them all_. It was all about the eyes. “Sing us another.”

“ _No_. No, no-no,” but Rodney was already launching into London Bridge. John glared between his fingers. “You’re not helping.”

“He's a smart kid.”

“Ronon.”

“I bet I could teach him some Satedan war hymns.”

“You’re not funny.”

Ronon smirked at him. He _was_ funny. And Rodney was disarmingly cute. “Teyla comes back today.”

She’d been on New Athos for the last few days, helping Halling’s niece and her new husband finish building their home. John hadn’t bothered her with Rodney’s situation, once they were sure it wasn’t a serious danger to his health, but when she got back she’d want to be fully briefed. “We’ve got the meeting with Zelenka and the science guys, and then I’m going to go pick her up.”

The singing stopped. 

There was something about Rodney’s face that wasn’t exactly scared -- if John were a betting man, he’d have said Rodney looked almost… excited. “Pick up Teyla?”

John arched a brow. “Uh huh.”

“In the Jumper?”

“Yeah, in the Jumper.”

“Maybe I can help?” Rodney set Zenka down, forgotten, and got on his knees in his chair, trembling with excitement. “I’m real smart. And I can help. I know numbers!”

“A Jumper isn’t really safe for a kid, McKay.”

“I’ll be good!”

“McKay--”

“I’ll listen, and I’ll give you help, because I’m smart,” he said, fast over John’s words. “And I’ll have a seat belt, and I’ll say hi to Teyla, and be polite, promise, I really promise!” 

John sighed and ignored Ronon’s huge smile beside him. “It isn’t safe, Rodney.”

The trembling only got worse. Rodney ducked his head down, his eyelashes wet as he hugged Zenka to him again. Even the wildest of his curls seemed to droop sadly. “Oh.”

“Maybe you can spend an hour or two with Ronon. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Rodney didn’t even look up.

From his left, Ronon gave him a sharp look. “Sheppard.”

John sighed. “Okay, fine.”

With a a whoop of joy Rodney hugged Zenka hard, and launched into a tirade on just what he would do to help, cause he was smart and knew numbers. 

Ronon kept grinning.

John kept glaring. “ _Not_ funny,” he muttered, and let his head thunk against the table.

 

.

“Hmm,” Zelenka said. 

It wasn’t a good “hmm”. It wasn’t even a slightly thoughtful “hmm”. It was the “hmm” of someone who knew they were screwed.

Zelenka anxiously danced on his toes.

“Hmm?” John asked, leaning forward against the briefing room table and crossing his arms. He’d been told he could pull off lazy and deadly like no one else, and employed both, flexing his arm muscles a bit and furrowing the line of his brow, a winning combination. “What exactly does that mean?”

“Well,” Zelenka said, pushing his glasses up nervously. “This is good news. Spontaneous aging, yes?"

It _was_ good news, since they wouldn’t have to send Rodney back to Earth. It was bad news in that they had no idea what the hell this was doing to him.

Keller nodded beside them, arms crossed tight. “Rodney’s aged a good twenty two months or so, making him about three, as he said. Still healthy, all his vitals are holding normal and steady.”

John stared at Rodney, sitting beside him playing with his screwdriver and Zenka. He was talking to himself, and all that could be seen over the table were his curls.

Woolsey winced and pressed his head into his hand. “What’s the news, Dr. Zelenka?” 

“Ah, yes. I have found out what the device is,” Zelenka said, taking his eyes off Rodney, all but crossing himself with a little shudder. “It is as we guessed, a way for the Ancients to reverse the effects of aging.”

“Reverse?”

“Yes. It is most amazing, in fact, or would be if this were any other situation,” Zelenka said, and turned his laptop around to show them. “I found references to it in the database. It does exactly what we see – changes the age of an individual without any permanent genetic alteration. I cross-referenced this with the area Rodney and I were exploring, and found a cache of very disturbing material.”

“What exactly does that mean?” 

“It is like this. The Ancients lived in this galaxy for a long time. In that time, they went through many changes, yes? Advancements in their technology. It seems that this device was created before the Wraith ever became a problem in this galaxy.”

“Okay, but what does that mean?” Woolsey asked again, frowning.

“The device was not created to reverse the effects of a feeding. Later, it was used to give the afflicted another few weeks of life, but its purpose was never to permanently reverse the effects of feeding from the Wraith. That is impossible.”

John felt his eyebrows do a dance over his head. “Cut the crap, Radek.”

Zelenka winced. “The lab we found is not a lab at all. Had I looked over the room more carefully I would have seen.” The look on Zelenka’s face said he wouldn’t forgive himself for a while for that mistake. “It was used for social experiments. From what I can tell, the device was used on, how do you say, unstable individuals. Those who could not function in normal society were rehabilitated using this device.”

There were two seconds of pure silence, punctuated by Rodney’s happy giggle. 

“However, this is not the worst part. The console was completely destroyed at some point during the siege. What we thought were corrosion marks were, in fact, Wraith weapon burns,” Zelenka said, pushing his glasses up nervously. “The device and the console worked together. The device is simply the computer that tells the console what to do.”

“Like the beaming technology on Star Trek?” John asked.

Zelenka frowned a moment. “No... well, yes,” he amended, nodding. “If we must use television references. However, since the console is broken, I did not know how Rodney was changed, until I looked closely at the device. The crystal he touched is used to store information, and was badly damaged.” He looked up at them happily. When the three of them stared at him, he sighed. “This means that the situation is similar to when we used the crystal technology of the Stargate.”

“When Lieutenant Cadman was, for lack of a better term, _stuck_ in Dr. McKay’s head?” Woolsey asked.

Shit. John rubbed his face. “Okay, so how does that help?” 

“Well, if the information is stored in the damaged crystal, then it can be accessed. I must simply find a _way_ to access information. It will likely have Rodney’s genetic code imprinted, and if it does, it is only a matter of repairing the main components of the Ancient console.”

“But the crystal is damaged, isn’t it?”

“Yes, which is where the ‘Gate crystal will be needed. I will transfer the information from the damaged crystal to the ‘Gate crystal. If this is-- Rodney?”

Rodney stood next to him, hardly taller than mid-thigh, Zenka tucked carefully under his arm. He tugged on Zelenka's lab coat again and held his hand out in a remarkably Rodney-esk way. If he could have snapped his fingers, he would have. “Marker?”

Zelenka gave it to him, and they all watched as Rodney carefully erased one spot on Zelenka’s equation board and wrote something that looked a whole hell of a lot like ‘6[4.9281]’. The numbers were little more than squiggles but they were numbers, alright, as clear as day. “I like numbers!” Rodney said, practically beaming.

John stared. “Please tell me he didn’t just fix your equation.”

Zelenka closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I would, but it would be a lie.”

Everyone in the room turned and looked at Woolsey. He sighed, rubbing his face wearily. "Do it."

 

.

It turned out that Rodney as a baby and Rodney as a three year old were completely different entities. Where baby Rodney had been sweet, loving, and happy, three year old Rodney was curiosity incarnate with eyes, mischievous to the extreme, and stubborn as a mule.

Basically, just like his adult self, only miniature and without the filters.

“No!”

“Yes!” John snapped. “You’re doing the damned pee dance, Rodney, just go to the bathroom!”

“No!” Rodney snapped right on back. “I don’t want to!” It sounded a whole lot like ‘I duh-wan-do!'

“Yes!”

“NO!” 

“YES!” John yelled back. “Either you _go_ to the bathroom, or I will wave your naked baby ass all over the front entrance hall and have the Marines _video tape it_!”

Rodney’s egomaniacal little face got even redder. “NO!”

“Yes, dammit!”

"NO NO NO, I don't want to, I don't _want_ to!"

"I don't care what you want! Either you go or I'll take Zenka away from you!"

"NO!" Rodney screamed, so loudly the windows all but shook, and turned into Demon Baby Mach 2, right before John's eyes. He kicked and screamed and wet himself all over, which just seemed to piss him off all the worse, because he turned and sank his teeth into John’s upper thigh.

John’s roar could be heard clear down the hallway.

 

.

Rodney’s chin wouldn’t stop wobbling.

It had wobbled during the clean up. It had wobbled through Keller’s search for more clothes, and a hair brushing, and clean shoes. It had wobbled all the way to the Mess, and it wobbled now, over grilled cheese sandwiches and military-issue powdered milk.

Rodney looked up a little through wet eyelashes, and then back down. They continued to eat. Zenka, sitting on the chair beside Rodney, had his own half of a cheese sandwich, greasy in one metal hand. John didn’t say a word, but he watched every emotion flickering across Rodney’s face like an open book from the corner of his eye. 

“Rodney,” John said. He looked up, and John could see the tears swimming in his eyes, his entire face desperate for forgiveness. “Drink your milk.”

Apparently, it wasn't the right thing to say. Head ducked as low as it could go, and chin wobbling all the worse, Rodney's breath stuttered with a suppressed sob, tears leaking out of the corners of those enormous Disney eyes of his. His lower lip trembled so hard that John thought, any moment, he was going to burst into the sort of sobs that had nearly undone John yesterday.

It was the worst damn guilt trip ever, and John had been _married_ once. 

He exhaled noisily. “Look. What you did, that was bad. Okay? Very, very bad. I know this sucks for you, I know you hate it, but going off like that isn’t going to get you what you want. It’s just going to piss me off and make me want to throw you off a balcony.”

Rodney ducked his head lower. John wasn’t sure if Rodney even understood what he was saying, but he understood the tone. John firmed it even more. “Homicidal tendencies aside, you need to once again become friends with the bathroom. Because I’ve got to tell you, otherwise? Things are going to suck for you. I know you don‘t want to be stuck in a diaper, Rodney, that’s just…” he shuddered.

Another sniffle was all John got in return.

With a sigh, a very deep, very put upon sigh, John pushed their plates away, turned Rodney’s chair around to face him, and peered down at him. “Look. We’re both learning here, okay? It is possible, and I do mean _slightly_ possible, that I may have acted like a petulant child back there, no offense. Its not any excuse for trying to de-ball me, mind you, but I kind of see how your pig headed little brain and my stubbornness might have clashed. I’m sorry for screaming at you."

Rodney didn't take his eyes off of him. "A-And Zenka?" he whispered, voice hitching. "You take Zenka?"

"No, I won't take Zenka," John said, and all but felt the entire Mess glaring at his back. "I promise, I won't take Zenka."

"I sorry, I sorry," Rodney sobbed, and all of a sudden John had his arms full of little boy who hugged him like his life depended on it. "I sorry I peed, and, and, I was mean and hurt you, because y-you're my friend and I love my friends, I sorry, please love me again too," and okay, yeah, like John could possibly resist that. 

He gathered Rodney up close on his lap, tucked that downy head under his chin, and sighed into soft hair. Rodney wasn't the man he had grown to respect and admire; he was just a kid, a sweet, sensitive little kid who didn't know any better. Not that he was getting choked up or anything, listening to Rodney cry those heartbreaking tears. "It's okay, Rodney," he said softly, rubbing his raspy cheek against Rodney's infinitely softer one. "It's okay, now." 

"W-We're best friends still?" Rodney asked, voice hitching. 

"We'll always be best friends, short stack," John said, and covered Rodney's fingers on his chest, grubby with dirt and tangled in John's dog tags.

 

.

John had known fear his entire adult life. As a career soldier, and a man with no family and no connections, he had lived his life on the edge of the military’s command, in the hardest situations and most hostile places. John had known fear so deep, so primal, so difficult to overcome that dealing with it had become second nature to him now. 

He didn’t scream, though it was his first instinct, gut-punch sharp and just as hard. Rodney wasn’t so little now, creeping over seven and crazy smart, but he was still young, too young to understand, and John didn’t know if he’d taken the loaded round in the chamber out, he didn’t know if he had taken it out.

John said, “Hey buddy, whatcha got there?”

Rodney jumped and John did too, his heart skipping a beat. “I was only looking at it,” Rodney said, blond curls falling in his red rimmed, tear filled eyes. 

“That’s okay,” John said, though it wasn’t, it wasn’t even remotely okay. “You should ask first, before you do, though,” John added quietly, and stepped forward into his room, set his gym bag down. “Why don’t you give it back to me, so I can put it away?”

“I…I’m supposed to have one, too, I think.” Rodney looked at it again, black and huge in his child’s hands. “I wear it on my leg, like GI Joe. Like you.”

John exhaled slowly, took another step forward around his bed. “Sometimes,” he said, carefully sitting down next to him. He was so small to be holding something that could cause so much death, and his eyes – they were Rodney’s eyes, his Rodney, full of despair and fear and horrible knowledge. “Yeah, Rodney, sometimes you did.”

“This isn’t right,” Rodney said, his little chest heaving. The first of those enormous tears trailed down his face. They weren’t the tears of a seven year old boy, but of the man trapped inside him, John’s friend. “This isn’t right. I’m not right, inside me.”

“Sure you are,” John said softly, touching Rodney’s shoulder, his cheek. “You’re just fine inside you, Rodney.”

He took the gun from nerveless fingers, set it aside, and hated himself for leaving it where a boy, even one as smart as Rodney, could find it. The little boy sobbed and John pulled him close, until those tiny arms wrapped around his neck. There wasn't a damn thing he could do, nothing he could say to make this better, and the powerlessness ached like acid in his chest.

He held Rodney until he fell asleep, and then held him some more, until dawn crept up over the horizon.

 

AND HOW IT WOULD HAVE ENDED....

OKAY so now that you're like WHERE'S THE END, I was finishing my last year at University and just didn't have time to finish it. But I had _plans_. The device that turned Rodney little was exactly as Zelenka said -- a device to rehabilitate prisoners/disturbed individuals. Rodney would have gone through his entire childhood and teenage years, only instead of the surly guy they all know he's this sweet, mild-mannered, brilliant kid who calls John 'dad', much to John's horror and secret glee. As he grows older, into his twenties, it's very, very obvious that he isn't the same Rodney they remember. 

So, he reaches his current age -- mid to late thirties -- and everyone is having to deal with this "new Rodney" who is basically just this overwhelmingly adjusted guy and John is missing his bff so. damn. bad., but there's nothing he can do because the device did what it was meant to do, it "rehabilitated" him by letting him grow up again, only this time in a warm, loving environment. That's the Ancients for you, no punishment, just love. 

And then one day Rodney comes to a staff meeting and John's surprised because -- those are gray hairs. That's a wrinkle or two. Isn't it? And that's when they realize that Rodney is getting older in front of their eyes, that the machine is still aging Rodney, that it hasn't STOPPED.

The entire science department races to find a cure, and each day that goes by Rodney is getting older, and older, and older. He's in his sixties, then seventies, then eighties -- he's skinny and old and frail, and John is watching him die in front of his eyes. Zelenka is racing against the clock but it's too late. It's too late. Rodney is in the infirmary on his death bed and John is there and Rodney says, "Please don't leave me alone," and John's a mess, an absolute mess because this is his kid, this is the little boy who begged him for a skateboard, this is the surly teenager who made cow eyes at Katie Brown and came home heartbroken when she turned him down. This is his kid who he's been taking care of for the past YEAR, this is his best friend, this is his family. 

Rodney passes away in the middle of the night, John holding his hand.

Before John can even do anything, nearly out of his mind with grief, Rodney's body is suddenly encased with hard, white light and DISAPPEARS, and Zelenka comes on the line shouting and John, Teyla and Ronon go running to the lab and THERE'S RODNEY, holy shit it's THEIR Rodney, in a stasis pod and IT TURNS OUT that Rodney's physical body has been in stasis the entire time. Kellar races him to the infirmary, and when Rodney wakes up it comes absolutely apparent that he remembers EVERYthing but he's still fundamentally himself. Still, it becomes obvious that he's totally changed by the experience of having lived an entire lifetime in a year. I would have added scenes with Zelenka where Rodney absolutely forgives him for not figuring it out before, "Once the process began, there was absolutely nothing you could have done, Radek. But, thank you for trying anyway." and John is actively avoiding him because he is allllll messed up, and Rodney finally tracks him down in one of the unused spires and he's like, "You took care of me and you didn't have to. You raised me, and cared about me and my welfare." 

"I didn't --" John stopped, because he's trembling, his hands and his voice and he can't think about it. He can't, because he's going to go fucking bonkers if he lets himself. "You kept calling me dad."

Rodney looks up. Before all of this he would have huffed, covered up his embarrassment with insults and his loud, booming voice. Before. "I don't want to embarrass you, which I'm pretty sure I'm failing at if the wilting hair is anything to go by, but. You probably always will be. My dad."

He doesn't know what to do with that. He doesn't even know what to say. "You've got to give me time."

"I can do that," Rodney says, quietly.

"He was my kid."

"I know."

He looks out at where Atlantis meets the cold ocean. The water is so blue it nearly hurts his eyes, makes them burn. "I watched you die. You were my kid and I watched you die."

"I'm so sorry," Rodney says, and comes to sit next to him at the edge of the pier. "I really am, John."

"Wasn't your fault."

"Of course it was my fault. I touched the device."

"That's kind of your thing," John says. "By the way, my hair isn't wilting."

"Your hair is woefully wilting," Rodney says, and when John allows himself to look over, he catches Rodney smiling. It isn't like his smile from before all of this happened, or at least not entirely. If the experience has changed John than it's changed Rodney, too, and John can see his kid in the curve of Rodney's mouth, in the sparkle of his blue eyes. He's three years old and calling him Colonel Mama. He's five and John moves them to a new set of quarters with a second bedroom, so Rodney can have all the room, and toys, he wants. He's nine and sneaking extra pudding in the Mess even though John has _told_ him no because Rodney on a sugar high is just not something he can deal with. He's twelve and gawky and skinny and so fucking adorable because his voice keeps cracking at the worst possible times, like when he's yelling, _I swear I'm not going to touch anything Dad, I just want to see Radek, I pinky promise swear I'm not going to even get near the stuff Lorne brought back!_. He's fifteen and suffering from debilitating headaches because Rodney is so smart, just so _fucking_ smart that it literally hurts if he doesn't keep his mind busy. He's twenty when they bring back the ZPMs from the Chevalier people, and twenty one when he figures out there's a lab in one of the damaged areas of the city that _can make more_. 

This is his kid. It's his kid, and he's trying so badly not to show how much he needs John, even though he's only a year or so younger than John himself. 

Rodney says, "It's how we gauge your moods. If you have time to style it into that ridiculous bouffant you've got going on, all is well."

"Hey, don't insult the hair," John says, gruff, and pulls Rodney in close and hugs him as hard, as tight, as he can. 

It only takes a second for all the tension in Rondey's body to evaporate. He exhales with a shudder, and his arms come up tentatively around John's shoulders, and when John cups the back of his head and tugs him even closer Rodney shudders and hugs him back.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come visit me on Tumblr!](https://ladyflowdi.tumblr.com/)


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